Publisher’s summary
Air Force One meets The Martian—with a dash of Knives Out—in this action-packed sci-fi thriller.
Imperium is the most expensive structure ever created. Once an orbiting laboratory, it is now a space hotel for the fantastically wealthy. But as the station preps for its first group of space tourists, Dr. Chloe Bonilla, Imperium’s resident biophysicist, finds herself questioning whether babysitting a passel of space glampers is worth the distraction from her research.
A private rocket delivers a rogues’ gallery of the world’s elite to Imperium: eccentric billionaires, callow tech bros, a sponsored Instagram influencer, and a seemingly saintly philanthropist. However, posing among the staff are members of a global terrorist group who call themselves the Reckoners, hell bent on upending the economic inequality of twenty-first-century Earth—and they have a bone to pick with these scions of the 1 percent.
As the Reckoners take control of Imperium and demand an $8 billion ransom from their wealthy hostages, it’s up to Dr. Bonilla to save them, and fast. Or the captives will be forced to exit the station—and there’s only one way out.
©2024 Tower Way. Based on a concept by Scott Veltri and Brendan Deneen (P)2024 Blackstone Publishing
This is audible Blackstone presents exit Black by Joe Pitkin this book is read by kolina Hoyos for Carlin prologue Chloe assessed the damage her left ear was ringing even as the sounds around her leaked away to a tiny little whisper she felt she could still hear
The blow to the side of her head the left side of her chest labored curiously broken ribs maybe but it was her right hand that troubled her her immovable fingers the ballooning numbness and the glove of her suit that she knew would sooner or later give way to a miserable
Aching you’re okay breathe she whispered to herself in that calm voice that she might use with a child Hollow and distant inside her helmet her mind dropped at length into that animal serenity that sits at the heart of all violence the lights had gone out only a
Dim glow from far down the corridor bled into the cafeteria the emergency claxons kept up their distant bleeding as though their warning were for the benefit of someone else she felt around her for the leg of a chair pulled herself gingerly swaying to her feet she felt her way to
The Swinging Door that connected the cafeteria and the kitchen she could feel the doors gentle puffing out against her hand as the air within the kitchen was slowly sucked toward whatever new whole breach the claxons were announcing she passed through into the pitch black of the kitchen the lights
Had probably shorted out here as well she wasn’t about to check she groped her way toward a hiding place above her she remembered hung the magnetized rack of knives she reached for the rack with her good hand her glove passed over the slim blade of a boning knife she took it up
And lurched the last few steps to the edge of the stove she crouched in the space between the stove and the Butcher Block holding the knife out before her like a tiny Stinger the noise of the claxons had diminished almost to nothing now there must be little atmosphere left
In this section of the ring she thought she did not hear the swinging door of the kitchen as it opened again rather she registered the man’s entry only as a faint infiltration of a distant gray light from Beyond the kitchen then the darkness prevailed again
He had had no reason not to try the light switch Chloe surmised that the lights were shorted out here too she wished that she had taken a position from which she could fight crouched on the floor as she was the best she could do would be to punch out with a knife
While he stood above her she might stick him once before he put a bullet in her head she heard or more likely felt through the floor his slow stumbling steps into the kitchen like the Staggering of a drunkard she prepared herself for one last last moment in her
Awareness he stood perhaps 2 m away perhaps less with a kind of mindless desperation like the stinging Instinct of a bee Chloe punched out in front of her with the knife chapter 1 24 hours earlier Chloe floated within the spinning hub of the Great Wheel for
An hour she had been floating she had woken that morning in her cabin at the Slender distant rim of Imperium had walked in the rim simulated gravity along the curve of the central Corridor toward gamma spoke from there she had climbed the ladder away from the edge of
The station away from the centrifugal force pressing down on her with nearly one G as she climbed the first hundred rungs she had felt her weight slipping away like a fog boiling off to almost nothing after the H hundredth rung she had become weightless enough to launch
Herself with her hands farther up the long cylinder of the wheels spoke she had risen like a phantom toward the Hub here was the inner sanctum the bridge the Laboratories here the factories would be someday here was the axle around which the wheel of Imperium rotated but even an inner sanctum needs
To be vacuumed Chloe drifted across the maintenance module she popped in her earbuds fired up her cleaning playlist for one with such an omnivorous t taste in music she had spiraled in on a single brief period of musical history during her time in orbit Nirvana sound garden Pearl Jam and their antecedants all
Those ragged Jagged sounds of childhood bouncing off the blank White Walls of the station with her the Pixies came on loud then quiet then loud again the grave cool equilibrium of Kim Deal’s base punctuated by momentary eruptions of Joey Santiago’s open cords and if the
Devil is six then God is seven then God is seven then God is seven this monkey’s gone to heaven she launched herself up the module as though propelled by the screaming of black Francis the bill of her baseball cap clipped the edge of the bulkhead as she
Sped by she spun the longsuffering salt rimmed cap around on her head the goofy bucktoothed grin of the old Oregon State University Beaver looked out like a pair of eyes from the back of her head Chloe was daydreaming a memory came to her of long ago fieldwork the dark
Divide of the gford pincho her still Insomniac hours the night jars calling about her in the false Dawn she had stared up at the spray of stars in her insomnia when she saw it a long golden streak of a meteor hanging silent in the sky longer than she had ever known a
Shooting star to do Chloe was not one typically to daydream the water recycl filters needed changing and well before the CIS lunar rocket arrived she would swap them out it had occurred to her many times before that whatever space station would follow in the generation after Imperium it would maintain every
Life support system without human intervention an inexhaustible ballet of computer scripts and robotic arms untroubled by Daydreams but Chloe was not a robotic arm and the filters of Imperium still needed human hands to replace them Chloe drifted remembering the Golden Trail of the shooting star while she pulled each filter out of its
Slot good morning Professor Conrad’s voice came over her earbuds ready to roll out the red carpet I guess I could do more to get myself spiritually ready Chloe replied into her mic where are you Dion and I just finished vacuuming Lab One it would be nice to get the labs
Done before guests start arriving Chloe was pulled back to that feeling stitched together from scraps of childhood memory of being imposed upon to get the house ready for a party back when parties were entirely her mother’s idea at an age Chloe remembered herself as 8 years old
In this feeling when a party meant only a house full of drunken guests and strange kids messing around with the stuff in her room Roger that Conrad are any of the hotel staff on this channel she realized as soon as she said it that in a way
Everyone on Imperium was Hotel staff but she didn’t think of Conrad that way or Dion either even though Dion was just as new up here as the hotel staff Conrad and Dion were like her the kind of crew that would be here long after the guests had gone
Home good question Conrad responded Eric tiza any orbital fenters folks on channel one good morning Conrad tiza answered back lawrens and I are on this channel anything you need us to do before the reception I think we have things pretty well in hand over here we’ll try to keep
Our guests from wandering off into your Labs Khloe was able at last to put her finger on her distaste for tiza Khloe wasn’t angry as she had once thought that tiza was a usurper the suddenly arrived alpha wolf on the station nor was it that this woman with her madeup
Title vice president of guest experience symbolized that Imperium really was down at the level of profit curves and budgets just a fancy ass hotel in the void of low earth orbit rather Chloe realized that there was a sunny Carefree quality to te’s tone that pretended that they were all equals on Imperium when
The very presence of the new company people up here illuminated a social ladder that had Conrad Dion maybe even Chloe herself on the bottom wrong Roger that tearsa Conrad said we’ll see you at 1400 hours in the levitas reception hall Chloe had to admit that she had plenty of time to get
Her chores done before the CIS lunar ship docked switching out the water recycler filters vacuuming the labs checking in on the germination rates in her growth Chambers she could take care of all of those before tiza and her minions expected her to stand at attention in the glorified airock called
Levit to’s reception hall dressed up like a page in her blue and gold orbital Ventures Corporation jumpsuit Chloe swam through her maintenance routines before launching herself back up the access Hall to the lab modules and her own work the other labs had been empty since March when
Kamra and Joe locked up their anerobic digestors in Lab 3 and headed home there would be more someday Chloe knew orbital Ventures would be leasing lab 4 to a Penn State team again Isa was sending another team up on a CIS lunar rocket in 2 months eventually chingua would be sending
Another nanomaterials group the lab residencies on Imperium had always been two steps forward one step back ever since the station had opened maybe it was more like one step forward two steps back to Chloe the empty lab modules felt like the lonely labyrinth in heart of a
Mansion of no concern to anyone except her as she glided through the darkened corridors like a ghostly housekeeper that that was just a feeling of course brought on by the darkness and Solitude of the lab wi she knew that the thoughts of the orbital Ventures people must
Return to the hub many times a day the Starliner capsule that had brought the last of them was docked to the hub off lab module 2 it would be hard for them not to think about their only right home excepting the metac capsule which the hotel types
Might not want to contemplate having to use for now though nobody moved through the labs besides Chloe she glided into the Long Hall of her dim lab space without bringing up the lights there was enough streaming out of the windows of the growth Chambers to see by within the
Brick X planner units were lined up under the artificial sunlight each Rank and iteration of Khloe’s work her attempt to emulate a gravitropic response in radicals that had germinated in the absence of gravity she could just make out a few of the beans within pale strange little thumbs behind the Plexi
Glass of their brick X and the port hole of the growth chamber on the lab console Khloe pulled up the spreadsheet where she kept her data on germination rates angles of gravitropic emulation the diameter of each radical she pecked at the keyboard to drop new data points into each cell
It was the kind of clerical work that would have gone to some poor overworked undergrad if this had been a phytology lab back at Oregon State not that Chloe had ever felt that this kind of work or any kind of work really was beneath her rather she reflected fleetingly as she
Had on hundreds of mornings before that she was at this moment the most expensive bureaucrat in the history of humanity tears’ voice came in over Khloe’s earbuds are you ready to join us in the reception hall doctor Chloe let out a weary exhalation inaudible over the communicators at least she hoped it was
Inaudible just finishing up some data entry Miss Fowler I’ll get dressed and be over there at400 actually Chloe had finished up the day’s data entry a half hour ago since then she had been sifting through data points with the kind of improvisational Joy like a session musician noodling out
Explorations on a guitar as she sorted data in the columns contemplating the outliers double-checking her entries Imagining the dimensions by which the numerals mapped onto the tiny living things she measured she closed up the spreadsheet closed up the station system apps on her laptop closed up her laptop as she
Launched herself out of the lab and T the spoke that led to her cabin she tried once again to empathize with vice president of guest experience tears of Fowler they were after all just two women trying to get their jobs done Chloe didn’t think that babysitting a
Pel of space glam ERS was much of a job then again maybe observing the behavior of bean roots and zero gravity didn’t seem like much of a job to tiza be friendly Chloe imagined her mother scolding her as though Khloe were once again a shy little girl she Dove along
The axle the corridor that ran the length of the Hub of Imperium the cylindrical heart of the station that connected Zerg lab modules spaceship docks the bridge the planned Factory Bays the the three slender spindles of the wheel of Imperium like bicycle spokes of fabulous strength formed three
Long passages from the center of the axle where Chloe glided connecting the Hub with the glittering Chambers on the rim of the station the state rooms of the guests the Fortuna Ballroom the salarium the glittering observation Cupa she made her way down gamma spoke toward the rim toward its slow Carousel
Simulation of gravity as she descended the rungs of the ladder floating past one of the brief discontinuities in the rungs where a circular hatch could close like a sphincter in case of a decompression event the perception of weight grew bit by bit upon her as though she were a phantom taking solid
Form chloey had been assigned a cabin not far from where gamma spoke opened out onto the rim next to Conrad’s and Dion’s cabins in the same section as the galley and store rooms she dropped down the last two rungs of the ladder to the floor of the rim with the whispered
Thump of a foot pad the sliding door of her cabin didn’t open it took Chloe a couple of seconds to comprehend that once again she had forgotten to clip her key fob to her jumpsuit this morning the introduction of the key fobs to Imperium was she realized one of the reasons she
So disliked tears of Fowler before the Hotel staff had arrived earlier in the year when the station housed only a few researchers and crew nobody had locked anything that had been the Golden Age Chloe understood only in retrospect now everyone had key permissions and fobs and swipes just like at any
Marriott she wasn’t about to embarrass herself admitting again over the communicators that she had forgotten her key fob she walked up the main ring Corridor a little way to the hotel Administration office the door to the administration office she couldn’t help noticing was wide open more accurately the security hatched to the office
Office was open Hotel Administration being like the bridge a space that could be sealed off completely during decompression just like sections of the spokes sections of the main Rim Corridor The Hub itself Chloe walked in hoping that she wasn’t going to have to explain herself to tears of Fowler the only one
Behind the desk was Miriam that internally chipper Songbird of a person who had come with the last launch of Hotel crew Chloe gave her an uncharacteristically warm Smile as much from relief as anything Mariam love I’m afraid I forgotten my key fob again miam had the look of an eager Earnest college
Intern though Khloe suspected she was older than she looked no worries Chloe I’ve got you Miriam led her back to Khloe’s cabin swiped her in with whatever Universal fob had been given to Hotel employees I wish I could say this is the last time I’ll forget Chloe said come
Back anytime Chloe old habits die hard Khloe’s cabin was as narrow as a freshman’s dorm room and nearly as Spartan at least she had the luxury of a double bed there were palacial state rooms for the high rollers the paying guests but Chloe reminded herself every window on Imperium looked out over the
Earth the same number of times every hour she shucked herself out of her work jumpsuit splashed through a quick shower zipped herself into the dress uniform she had to admit that the uniforms looked smart they had a kind of retro space AG charm as though she worked aboard a rocket of swooping curves
Designed by Aeros saronin her suit was a Sleek fitting high-end spandex the blue of the Western sky at nautical twilight with the Insignia of the orbital Ventures corporation on her left breast the Insignia itself took the shape of a teardrop or an aerodynamic golden Fender of a 1937 talbo logo Chloe slipped on
Her soft sold blue slippers attached her access fob also a teardrop to her waist gave one last check to the tightness of her braids under her cap the thick black ropes of her hair would have been worn the same way by her grandmother or for that matter by an ancestor of 2,000
Years ago the quickest way back to the hub and the levy TOS reception hall would have been the way she had come but whether to satisfy some truant urge or because she wanted a final moment of luxury in the absence of the coming guests Khloe strolled nearly 2/3 of the
Circumference of the rim over 400 m clockwise past the gym and observation decks the spa the billiard room the conservatory the grand State rooms to Alpha spoke Alpha and beta spokes housed the elevators Khloe preferred the latter of gamma spoke liked the tactile reality of the rungs on her hands and feet offering
Differing amounts of pressure as she climbed and descended Alpha spoke stood in the middle of the Rim’s main Corridor like a stout pillar then the doors parted for her and all around Khloe saw the vision of Olivia foray the reclusive designer that orbital Ventures had paid a million
Dollars to design the sections of Imperium that guests would see the walls of the elevator car were upholstered in luminous blue satin patted as though to suggest some genre of biological tissue as though Chloe were ascending through the esophagus of a sleeping Arctic Dragon the handholds which she grasped
As she ascended into weightlessness were the Slender outlines of teardrops the Insignia of orbital Ventures Corporation always visible worked in aluminum and upholstered in Gold leather a soft light bathed the elevator from many angles reflected everywhere Chloe glided into the levit to reception hall at 1354 she could see as soon as she
Entered that she was the last of the crew to arrive ah Professor announced Tio with a kind of manic brightness she was tall and pale and lithe her red hair upswept with an architectural precision and a great deal of hairspray her black jumpsuit opened at the top to reveal
What looked like a linen Oxford shirt and an orbital Ventures blue silk necktie I think we’re all here let’s have you over here with Captain Whitaker and Commander Stubblefield the hotel team will form up on this side the hotel team seemed to refer to the 14 underlings who had arrived on three
Starliner flights over the last several weeks Eric assistant vice president of guest experience laurrens administrative assistant to the vice president of guest experience nenah administrative assistant to the assistant vice president of guest experience Miriam Chloe had no idea what Miriam did for that matter she was unclear what the
Other 10 did did as well or even their names she supposed they were cooks and housekeepers during the hour that Khloe had been in the lab Conrad and Dion had taken up their posts on the bridge of Imperium walking through the rendevu protocol with the CIS lunar rocket that
Fied their guests now that the ship had docked and the air pressures of ship and station had been equalized they could stand at attention to the extent that anyone stands in zero gravity anchoring themselves by the gracefully curved handholds oh and Chloe tiza added please lose the Hat Chloe had to admit that
This was probably sound fashion advice that sun bleached cap had never left her head during field season helmond had bought it for her back when she took the OSU job four years of sweat and dust had stiffened it so that it folded up almost like a wallet which she slipped into the
Slim Hip Pocket of her jumpsuit Chloe had a fleeting impulse to make a joke about getting to stand by the two hotties an urge she abandoned as soon as she was aware of it too many ways for such a remark to land badly Conrad and Dion wouldn’t care of course
And neither of them would get the wrong idea but still this moment in the levitas reception hall seemed an uncommonly humorless time and place are we supposed to bow when they come in Chloe whispered Dion snorted quietly perhaps taking for a a joke what had been a serious question he leaned
Over and whispered back it might make them feel more at home if we were to Bow he gave her a conspiratorial nod that made her wonder if he was flirting with her but bowing isn’t really our style is it nah touched some button on the screen
Of the tablet she held and the foyer filled with a curious sequence of ringing tones what Chloe imagined she might hear in some Heavenly orthodontist’s office it was Brian Eno’s music for airports Chloe was reminded of the discussion that had occurred months before back when tears of Fowler was
Still in California about the music that would be played during the guest’s arrival in the levitas reception hall she couldn’t remember who at orbital Ventures had been so adamant about having a live stream quartet aboard during the arrival someone Tia was carrying water for she remembered Dion’s patient explanation of the challenges
Presented by four musicians playing stringed instruments in zero gravity drifting around like four Priceless wooden billiard balls Olivia for patched into the call from France had suggested a recording of Brian Eno the hatch opened Chloe could see the leather upholstery of the rocket cabin Beyond just behind the hatch stood a man
From the CIS lunar spaceways crew and what looked like a pleather jumpsuit the color of raw beef anchoring himself to a handhold on the other side of the hat with his free arm he guided the first of the guests along with the same fluid swinging motion he might use to push a
Child around a merrygoround the first guest glided in wearing the heavy CIS lunar flight suit he was a wiry handsome man with angular features the face of a weary 40-year-old or a well-conserved 60-year-old like a butler of an ancient Hall Nina announced him in a sonorous Oxbridge accent Mr Jing Lee
Chloe discovered that Lee was both shorter and more handsome than she had been led to believe from the many photographs she had seen in most news photos the founder CEO and principal stockholder of sha Enterprises bore a kind of disdainful Grimace as though he couldn’t believe the stupidity of the
People he was dealing with now that she could compare the pictures with the man in the flesh it occurred to Khloe that these photos might have been intended to communicate something about Shaw Enterprises to the public Lee’s face as he entered Imperium betrayed an unguarded Joy unlike any of
The photos Chloe had seen of the man he looked around the levit reception hall like a bookish child inspecting the Rosetta Stone at the British museum now came the dreariness of the introductions the nodded greetings and floating bows yet Khloe had to admit to herself that tears of Fowler was quite
Skillful at shepherding Lee in weightlessness around the hall tearsa introduced Lee to Chloe with an eager chirp and here we have imperium’s resident scientist Dr Bonia no formalities Chloe said nodding decorously please call me Chloe Lee nodded a smart bow but did not attempt Chloe’s name Chloe couldn’t remember how
Much English Lee spoke she thought she had read that one of the guests spoke a little Lee seemed to attend to tears’ ministrations with a Steely intensity and at any rate Tiara quickly handed Lee off to Miriam before Khloe could have asked even an empty question about Lee’s flight Miriam guided the man
Through the circular portal toward the axle and from there Khloe assumed to the gleaming elevator of alpha spoke as Khloe watched him recede up the Axis Corridor to the axle Nina announced the entry of the next guests Nicholas and Samir Winters kesi the pair of Angel Investors floated
In shining with that apollonian beauty common to Californians at the Apex of their earnings curve chloee searched out samir’s lamb eyes as though she might receive some oracular insight there but his smile right now like his husband’s seemed surprised more than anything as though being among the first tourists to
Spend two weeks in low earth orbit were a sweep Stakes they had just won if an orbital Ventures publicist was nearby which for all Chloe knew Miriam or one of the the others might be the childlike looks on Nicholas’s and samir’s faces would serve as a fitting advertisement
For Imperium among the hotel’s Target demographic of course the Target demographic for Imperium needed no advertisements at all again the introductions Chloe opened her mouth to ask them how their flight had been but Nicholas jumped in before she could inhale how long did it take you to get used to
Weightlessness the honest answer was that one never fully gets used to it that humans are not evolved for weightlessness but the tone of Nicholas’s question was so bright and sunny as though they were all sitting poolside in Palm Springs and he was asking her what she was drinking that
She said instead it gets a lot easier after a couple of days this was also true somewhat the one she really wanted to talk with was exquisitely beautiful Samir she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to ask him something about his feelings his loves what had he felt when
He had almost single-handedly financed the eradication of African sleeping sickness but all that she could think of when faced with him was I hope that you love it here the banal standing in for every meaningful thing she wanted to ask and before either man could open his
Mouth again tears of Spirited them away toward Miriam who had just reappeared in the circular hatchway like a clock chime set in motion by a spring nah announced the entry of the next guest sir Alexander Dunn Chloe had studied even more photos of Sir Alexander Dunn than
She had of Lee the laugh lines around his eyes the creases across his forehead made him seem perpetually on the verge of ging his hair had taken to weightlessness by doing what it always seemed to be doing in photos only more so flying out like a child’s homemade
Mane on a Halloween costume of a lion there was no gray in his hair which seemed so garishly Ginger that couldn’t possibly have been died that way on purpose sir Alexander shook everyone’s hand in the old preco style with the kind of gentle searching eye contact
That one would expect him to display on a visit to a children’s hospital or a nursing home he leaned in as though sharing a confidence with tiza then with Eric then with Conrad once again it fell to Khloe to insists that sir Alexander needn’t call her Dr Bonia and what are
You a doctor of sir Alexander asked arching a wisp of eyebrow plant phology apply genetics ecological stoic geometry for audiences of a certain type she had at the ready a stock of such terms for what she did but sir Alexander D and indeed everyone else on Imperium was not
The type I’m a botanist she said sir Alexander gave an appreciative little gasp that seemed to Chloe both a little flirtatious and a bit lazy he would have gasped the same way if he just learned she was an insurance adjuster or a pipe fitter how did you enjoy your second
Trip into orbit Chloe asked ah you remember the first one sir Alexander chuckled just about anyone who had watched YouTube in the last four years which is to say just about everyone on Earth remembered sir Alexander Dunn’s first space journey while riding in Orbit on one of the space planes of his
Own space flight startup hesperis he had given the world an object lesson in the consequences of drinking champagne and zero gravity carbon dioxide precipitates out of fizzy drinks differently in space wet burps NASA people had called them back in the day the video of Sir Alexander’s orbital
Puking was still the sixth most viewed clip in the history of YouTube I admire your grit for coming back into orbit Chloe said I suppose I am quite gritty he responded in a strangely high voice that might have been an affectation but whatever else he had hoped to say just then was interrupted
By Nina’s announcement of the next guest a name Khloe didn’t hear as Miriam who had just returned to the levah reception hall whisked the sand blasted sir Alexander toward the elevator and the state rooms Chloe whispered to Dion wait who just arrived seriously Chloe that’s Viv voltera
The woman looked as though she were meeting a date at a wine bar of all the guests voltera was the first and Chloe would realized later the only one to have found some way to accessorize her raw meat colored flight suit at some point during the long wait of airlock
Pressurization she had produced an old-fashioned white silk Aviator scarf which she wore with a nonchalance complimented by the effect of Zero Gravity on the shimmering fabric voltera was more odd-looking than what Chloe would have called pretty she had a long almost imperceptibly lopsided face that gave the impression of a
Mountain whose layers had undergone a slow geological deformation yet the scarf accomplished something that the Flawless beauty of the Winter’s kesis had failed to volara looked interesting Khloe knew that Imperium would be full of guests who had gained the system or who had caught a fantastically lucky break people who had
Dropped out of Harvard or Stanford to strike it rich selling genomic testing or nanotech snake oil or simply gossamer images of themselves on social media but even in this parade of huers Viv voltera had the look of a woman on the make a Sphinx’s smile impossible to stare down
Concealing more than it revealed on second thought Chloe realized when they greeted one another voltera was indeed very pretty she was a creature whose Terrible Beauty would out last that of the others she would still be beautiful when Imperium grew old and stale and orbital Ventures dropped it from orbit
And cast it into the sea I’ve read a lot about you voltera said there was gravel in her voice that Khloe hadn’t expected I find that hard to believe Chloe answered she regretted her sass as soon as it came out of her mouth but she was sure that volara was bullshitting
Her not many people follow the lives of plant phys ologists specializing in gravitropism if volara was offended though she masked it so this is Imperium she said with a sage nod looks like a real [ __ ] hole a long mortifying moment passed before chloey realized that volara was joking in a giddy Panic Khloe
Followed up from her impoverished store of stock questions how was your flight what can one say about the G’s at the end voltera said Chloe commiserated with the well- rehearsed story of her own liftoff which chased off the questions she really wanted to ask are you running
From the feds are you planning on staying up here somehow is this trip a last Harrah before you are indicted out of the corner of her eye Khloe noticed Tia take vola’s arm gently as she had with Lee and Sir Alexander and The Winter’s keshes on their slow drifting circuit around the reception
Hall it dawned on Khloe as she told her story that Tia was playing for time with these introductions Miriam needed time Chloe supposed to accompany sir Alexander down the alpha spoke elevator to a stater room on the rim that elevator could hold at least 10 people
At once but the guests hadn’t paid so much money to be crammed into an elevator with one another but soon enough Miriam had returned from ensconcing Sir Alexander in his State room and she reappeared to lead voltera down the silken Sapphire Lake corridor as though she were a clock
Chiming the hour nah in toned the names of the next guests M and Mrs Roger and Jessica Van Cleave the next guests floated into the levitas reception hall as serenely as Angels the couple seemed even younger now or more ageless than they had seemed in the Vanity Fair photo
Spread that had chronicled their $10 million Star Trek themed wedding on quadine ATL they had accomplished through tanning of one kind or another an imagined median skin tone for the human race a gold of freshly baked bread their smiles suggested or so Chloe imagined their beautific satisfaction
With all the Arrangements on Earth and in heaven it had cost the two of them $164 million for 2 weeks on Imperium they were on their honeymoon this is awesome Roger exclaimed as they were introduced to Chloe Chloe wondered whether his pronouncement referred to Imperium to the couple’s first space flight to the
Weird mange of formality and farce in a zerogravity receiving line perhaps he was speaking about the universe in general Chloe decided to leave that question a mystery instead she followed her safest line of questioning she asked how their flight had gone just like sitting in an airplane
Roger replied this was not the way that Chloe would have described her own experiences with space flight still she wasn’t a special interested in the ways that Roger vancleave’s experience differed from hers she turned instead to Jessica Van Cleave and how did you like the flight Jessica Van Cleave took in
The question as though she were watching an iridescent hummingbird that hovered in front of her she opened her mouth to answer but just then Miriam re-entered the levitas reception hall and nah announced the last of the guests Miss Cassandra in Jessica Van Cleave nodded a smiling acknowledgement that the conversation was over and
Miriam drew them off toward the elevator as Chloe tugged on her handhold to turn her attention to the new arrival Khloe had watched a handful of Cassie ing’s YouTube videos in anticipation of her visit she seemed somewhat less perky in person a short skinny 26-year-old in an ill-fitting SIS lunar flight suit her
Skin looked a little gray her waxy smile reminded Khloe of a person coming out of of anesthesia Cassie hadn’t paid her own way Chloe knew Conrad and Dion had joked that the girl’s flight suit would be plastered with sponsors decals as though she were a NASCAR driver following
Cassie ing’s Instagram feed of fashion tips and pet hedgehogs and makeup tutorials had confirmed for Chloe her suspicion that Instagram was a waste of time 12 million Instagram followers can’t be wrong Conrad had said to which Chloe had replied that of course they could that all kinds of horrible people had 12 million
Followers does your head feel full of snot the whole time you’re up here Cassie said as they were introduced yep so long as you are in zero g do you ever get used to it the correct answer was not really however Chloe had received some training from the orbital Ventures people on
Responding to such questions diplomatically it takes a while but you’ll get the of it your head will feel a lot more normal after you move out to the rim she continued centrifugal force gives us the equivalent of 85g out there Cassie asked whether Chloe had met
Olivia fora then she asked about the air pressure inside Imperium Khloe was still explaining the oxygen cycling of the station when Miriam re-entered Cassie seemed to notice the arrival before Chloe did in some ways I’m more curious about the rim G Cassie said as tiza Drew her
Away about what the 85g that actually sounds more interesting than zero g Chloe wasn’t sure what to make of such a remark she suspected that nobody in the history of space travel had come in hopes of experiencing 85g I look forward to asking you about your research Cassie called out as she
Left the levit reception hall oh my research isn’t worth talking about Chloe felt like answering but she kept that to herself chapter 2 there are some ways that a party is lonelier than working by yourself in the lab Helman said from her laptop screen as had often happened over the course of
Their relationship he seemed to express exactly the feeling Khloe had been trying to articulate even as the longer Arc of the conversation suggested that he was missing her Point entirely it was true that while watching her beans grow over the last months reading new papers sometimes reading old papers from
Botanists long dead shooting off emails to living colleagues holding imagined conversations with long dead ancestors of her discipline Meyer and debinski Morgan and mendle Darwin and Wallace all the way back to John Ray and those Parson naturalists tending flowers outside their rectories Khloe had never felt alone with her growth chamber and
Seedlings but that had not been the real matter she was trying to express to Helmand she stared at the image of herself in the Square next to his her long hair pulled back under that weather beaten ball cap I guess I always assumed you’d be at the first guest party Chloe
Finally after all her many indirections managed to say she understood then at last that she had nursed a hope right up until the CIS lunar rocket docked with the station and disgorged the guests that Helmand would step off that rocket into the levit reception hall as a romantic
Surprise oh CL he sighed as though her name weighed a great deal in his mind you know that I would be there I would she couldn’t tell from the angle of helman’s webcam whether he was in one of the orbital Ventures offices it looked almost as though he was connecting from
One of the white stucked rooms of his basement what came up down here I would much rather have avoided he said it was the fourth or fifth time he had had this conversation with her Chloe was familiar enough with the explanation that she didn’t labor over his convoluted wording
Or even attend to it I can’t hand off this negotiation to anyone else I need to be down here anyway the opening gal is not really my kind of scene he added Ron what other kind of scene would it be you sent Tiara up here but you can’t
Show up to your own opening gall look as much as I want to be with you right now this Gala isn’t just some party it’s the company’s Meal Ticket your meal ticket too all those Tech Bros up there are subsidizing the station’s Labs tear is the right person for the
Gala job she has hosting skills I don’t have he had a point Chloe knew Ron was one of those people who could inhabit fully a conversation with her listen to her draw her out offer an attention that fell on her like a spotlight beam yet in
A group as people around him laughed and loosened up he would withdraw within himself as though into an invisible carapace it was that hermetic quality that had drawn her to him in the first place back in graduate school so we’re not going to be seeing
You up here for a while then you just get in there and be your beautiful self Helman responded I’ll say a few words remotely to kick things off I promise I’ll make it up to you when you get back you promise huh Chloe smirked it might
Take a lot to make it up to me I miss you love he said I miss you Ron she said and the screen went dark before she could identify what it was that she hadn’t said what she had really wanted to say idly and without a perfect
Awareness of what she was doing she slipped a ring from the fourth finger of her right hand to the fourth finger of her left it was no ring that Ronald Helman had given her and yet on her wedding finger she felt the ring take on a protective almost totemic quality as
Though she anticipated some danger that another man would hit on her here in space when her boyfriend wasn’t around the ring she placed on that finger predated helmond had actually come from her father it was the tiny Sacramento PD lapel badge he had been wearing when he
Was killed Khloe’s mother had had it made into a ring set it with a tiny Stone in the center ENT it had passed to Chloe during her second year of Community College it was time for The glampers Space Walk anyway Khloe climbed from the rim toward the weightless heart
Of the Hub she disliked having them crowd through the kamra Joe lab to get to the airlock they would be using of course it hadn’t been cra’s or Joe’s lab for months now it was just lab module 3 it wasn’t like they’d be poking around in her lab Samir and Nicholas were
Already in the airlock by the time Chloe arrived Dion was explaining to them how the custom space suits of Imperium offered a slightly different range of motion in a vacuum than the suits the guests had trained on during their weeks preparing for the trip they took in his low gentle voice like sunflowers
Tracking the Sun the others arrived in ones and twos they suited up in silence or in laughter Chloe took a guilty enjoyment and what she perceived to be their contained Terror this feels a little like life Hing Chloe murmured to Dion did you go to the public pool when you were a kid
She said that she had did you pay attention to the Lifeguard I did mostly I was a rule follower when I was little not the kids I ran with let’s hope that this is better than lifeguarding Cassie the most petite of the guests by far seemed to have been
Issued a space suit for a large doll Chloe had to help her squeeze into it if the suit had been made to measure it certainly didn’t seem to have been made to Cassie’s measure like an instructor for the most ridiculous aerobics class imaginable Chloe led the guests through
The insit light exercise protocol that would help ward off the bends after their space walk she anchored the guests as they suited up set them to work pumping their legs their arms undulating like thick Lim SE and neones and Starfish Chloe undulated with them Dion pulsed his legs with a burly decision
That reminded her of an NFL player doing warm-ups in full pads Dion had made half a dozen space walks in his NASA days and another two back when he worked for CIS lunar he’ logged over 45 hours total according to a kid in Scotland who maintained a website listing the record
Holders for spacewalks extravehicular activities as the kid and NASA called them Dion was in the top 20 worldwide Khloe had made a single Eva two months into her time on Imperium when she and comra and Joe had assisted Conrad with the repair of a Vernier Thruster she neither dreaded space walks
As kamra had nor was as giddy as Sir Alexander Dunn or Roger and Jessica Van Cleave seemed to be as they mugged and giggled through the long depressurization protocol rather for Chloe a spacewalk was merely another of the chores of Imperium one she found unpleasant but not Beyond her powers
Let somebody know if you’re feeling sick Dion announced over their radios just as the airlock door began to retract then came the vision of the Stars Beyond them they hung before the space Walkers like a parliament of distant Gods more stars than any of them would ever have seen from Earth one by
One the guests checked their umbilical cables they followed Dion out toward the stars or more properly into the nothing that surrounded Imperium from from the bridge Miriam was directing a robot camera far beyond the guests Beyond Chloe taking pictures Khloe turned from her charges for a moment to watch the
Robot photographing the scene she imagined what Miriam was seeing the dark wheel of Imperium the light flooding out of the open airlock like a street light of incomparable loneliness the last street light in the solar system the eight guests drifting out on their umbilical cables like newly hatched
Spiders on silken leads the dim night side of Earth was invisible to them on the other side of the station far out beyond their feet they could see a scabrous slice of bright moon they would Bob and float in the suspension until the sunrise reel out until they could
See the glittering Jewel of Earth Chloe returned to the task at hand such as it was she and Dion played lifeguard moving untethered around the group using their personal maneuvering units those compact backpack like carapaces derived from NASA’s old armchair siiz mmus the guests floated and gasped to one another over their communicators
There was a girlish giggling maybe Cassis like the laughter of a child playing in new snow one of the guests spurted oh my God this is better than sex and a breathless headlong utterance Chloe thought the voice might have belonged to Nicholas I have been one acquainted with
The Knight declaimed sir Alexander amid the laughter as though he were calling out from the prenium of a vast stage I have walked out in just then sir Alexander’s voice cut out so did the gasps and giggling of the rest the light from the airlock went dark the station
Diminished to nothing but a silent Inky Shadow spread under the light of the Moon come in Mania came Dion’s voice over her radio what the hell just happened Chloe asked Dion lit up the headlamp on his suit he had fired the thr rusters on his maneuvering unit and
Was moving fast toward the guests some kind of power outage it looks like he said we have to get the guests back to Imperium of the 10 of them on the spacewalk only Chloe and Dion were not tethered their oxygen tanks were integrated into their massive backpacks the rest had everything Communications
Propulsion air piped in through their umbilicals Chloe turned on her headlamp as well propelled herself toward the guests by the time she reached the one nearest her maybe Samir Winter’s kesi to judge by the figure’s height she noticed Dion had scooped up another of the guests in
A full nelson hold and was propelling himself and his charge toward the dark hole of the airlock Chloe grasped the guest she had reached under the arms and began to propel herself and him in the direction of Imperium she saw around her that it had occurred to some of the guests to
Begin hauling themselves hand over hand up their umbilical cable toward the airlock she knew there was a manual override for the airlock door she raced through her memory for an image of the crank that she or Dion would need to find and turn they reached the airlock
Then just as she was turning to retrieve another of the guests the lights flickered to life again Khloe heard gasping and screaming over her Communicator from the guests Dion was trying to bark over them let’s get everybody back on Imperium a few of the guests seemed to have experienced the 30
Seconds of airless and silence and darkness in a panic that they could not dispel now the one Chloe had brought back Nicholas actually she was sure now grasped one of the handholds in the airlock Dion had carried another in four others had hauled themselves in on their
Own tethers or they had had the presence of mind to use their rocket packs when the nitrogen propellant began flowing again the last two screamed and gasped suspended still on their tethers once they could get handholds and footholds Khloe and Dion began pulling the last
Two in they were a man and a woman Khloe could tell by their voices sir Alexander she thought and maybe Cassie the two drifted in slowly from the darkness the voice of the man gibbered as though his moment in the utter airless dark had changed his vision
Forever the larger of the two was the one whose tether Khloe had hauled on the figure landed as gracelessly as a sack of meal crashing gently into her as she grasped the figure with her free hand Dion had retrieved the other the airlock doors crept shut the aerolock
Repressurized within 2 minutes the 10 of them opened their visors the last panicked figure Chloe had brought in was in fact Roger Van Cleave ashen-faced the other who had panicked was Cassie ing I’m so sorry she said to the group or to the world in general I thought it was suffocating what happened
Khloe whispered to Dion Dion returned only a tight lipped glance that Khloe interpreted as consternation or stoic befuddlement perhaps though his face showed simple irritation just then sir Alexander Dunn ejected a burgeoning cloud of vomit that floated before him in the airlock tiza held an emergency meeting 2 hours later
In one of the orbital Ventures conference rooms at the rim of the station there had been some kind of electrical overload near the airlock Conrad reported thankfully each of the airlocks was on its own circuit in the event of a power failure on the larger station thus the bridge was wired on a
Different circuit and had been unaffected by whatever brief failure had occurred Nina and Vitali were troubleshooting the event until they could report Conrad wouldn’t have many answers to give Conrad’s pronouncement didn’t stop Tiara and the rest from peppering him with questions yes he said the overload had shut down all power in
The airlock as well as one of the lab modules for 32 seconds no there had never been a power surge on Imperium before yes so far as he knew the power had returned spontaneously no there were no lightning strikes in Space the opening Galla would continue had to continue as planned it
Was the first time Chloe had seen teara say something without her flight attendant smile winched up we have to do the gala Chloe sat at the table and watched like a child on a merry-go round horse as Imperium wheeled away from the earth across the table from her Dion
Wore the same unreadable scowl she had seen in the airlock later as she inputed a new batch of data points on her radicals Chloe knew despite her deep impulse to call [ __ ] on the whole evening that she would be going to the gala she listened to the chatter over her earbuds while
She worked Miriam and the housekeeping staff were being run ragged lawren and Nina and for a little while even Eric assistant vice president of guest experience were deputized as impromptu dressers and fact totems perhaps Chloe didn’t sit on the bottom of the social ladder after all the Fortuna Ballroom
Sat on the rim of Imperium at the antipode of Khloe’s cabin that evening Khloe walked the long Corridor that ran along the rim as though along the inside of a gigantic bicycle tire Rising before and behind her as she walked the eternally Rising floor a hamster would
Perceive in an exercise wheel all along her approach she could hear a roiling underbeat of Music pumping toward her like a pheromone some genre of Electronica that she imagined guests might find dancable she walked in as the Galla was beginning the light in the Fortuna Ballroom was a lower Twilight blue than
The Azure of the corridor Nina stood at the archway entrance surveying the perimeter like a humorless guard she left off this real or imagined responsibility for a moment to nod at Chloe as she entered the gesture seemed so expressionless that Chloe wondered whether nah was nodding at the
Recognition of their shared Livery more than anything else along the walls Airy motos materialized and faded away on massive screens Heaven Earth hold Infinity in the palm of your hand beauty is you for a space that the company had build as a Ballroom the hall seemed dark
And blank except for the wall length screens and their ephemeral words at the end of the room stretched a black counter as featureless as the walls behind which another orbital Ventures employee Vali Chloe thought his name was seemed to be filling a tray of drinks
For Miriam to carry Chloe took in the 15 or so attendees guests orbital Ventures administrators CIS lunar flight crew she wandered about the room eavesdropping on the discussions but whatever feelings the guests harbored about their recent scare outside the airlock they were keeping quiet about them now or at least
Quieter than the pounding of the music a bunch of damn clowns someone with a man’s voice and an American accent shouted in one of the little groups over the pounding but those were the only words Chloe could make out in her whole tour of the ballroom the
Guests did seem to be drinking with some enthusiasm however Miriam and another young woman attended them like bees working an orchard the guests and crew and administrators had mixed and remixed with one another they all seemed to be laughing and shouting well lubricated Roger and Jessica Van Cleave
Then appeared in the entryway of the ballroom as soon as they came in Chloe spied nah saying something into her mouthpiece the music faded out then the words on the screens peace such stuff as dreams are made on We Are All Made of Stars evaporated then the diffuse light of the Fortuna
Ballroom began to gather took shape in a tight circle on the floor in the center of the crowd everyone turned to regard the new bright spot in the darkness it was a hologram of helmond standing among them large as life larger actually Chloe knew that he was 5’9 on Earth while his
Image before her towered at least 6 and 1/2 ft tall the image disoriented her as though it were a promotional poster hung above them all his tailored blue suit both exactly what he would wear and nothing she had ever seen him wear before his luminous gold silk tie bore a
Diamond orbital Ventures pin that glittered as though reflecting an invisible light source helman’s voice rang out over the group explosives and fricatives finally synchronized with the movements of the Holograms mouth ladies and gentlemen the Hologram said I am Dr Ronald Helman founder and chief executive officer of orbital Ventures
Corporation on behalf of our entire family of Engineers technicians scientists and Hospitality Specialists I welcome you to Imperium you are the honored from the group a burst of hooting triumphal and Simeon interrupted the Holograms address as though nothing odd or unpleasant had happened to them 6 hours before the Hologram paused for the
Interruption the image continued you are the honored guests of Humanity’s first extraterrestrial hotel if you’ll indulge my speaking poetically I declare that you are pioneers in a new land harbingers of a new age in the history of our species helman’s recording or the algorithm representing helman’s speech
Paused for the guests to admit a more decorous self-regarding Round of Applause Chloe watched wrapped as the image of the man she so closely knew enumerated the virtues of homo sapiens especially those fortunate Homo sapiens who worked for or contracted with the orbital Ventures Corporation there was a
Quote from Shakespeare an action how like an angel an apprehension how like a god something something something Khloe’s dismay grew deeper as the Hologram went on speaking the voice was Ron’s she knew the sentiments were his to in a way how could her boyfriend have so irrevocably thrown himself into
Orbital Ventures without believing something along the lines of what the image was saying but the real Ron Helmand would not have spoken any of the things his simulacrum was speaking now this sounded like a TED Talk written by a marketing major for a Convention of Carl Sean impersonators I bring you the Hologram
Finally drove to its conclusion to the threshold of all human existence I reveal before for you the Cradle of humanity my friends I give you the Earth helman’s hushed Tone seemed for a moment at odds with the Holograms expansive salute his arm sweeping as though he
Were a sorcerer casting a spell at the figure’s gesture the color of the wall opposite the entryway as well as the floor and the ceiling seemed gradually to brighten the guests gasped then cheered discovering that the blank walls were no longer opaque no longer walls that they were made of
Some kind of polarized material in front of the Gathering beneath them an expanse of Windows L out now onto a view of the great curve of the earth as though Imperium were the highest rooftop Casino in history The Phantom of helmond had disappeared the dance club pounding of
The Electronica began to wash once more into the ballroom Miriam and the other waiter her name tag read Meredith whisked their their trays of tumblers back and forth from the bar to the celebrants sir Alexander Dunn Whirled across the Fortuna Ballroom in a floored purple Wizard’s robe and pointy hat the
Stars that Spangled his outfit seemed to be moving across the fabric by themselves their color deepening into a red shift as though he were shooting across the hall at near light speed during a pause in the music Khloe could hear him giggling a throaty chuckle that edged into hysteria she heard a young
Woman’s voice emerged from the music and laughter Dr Chloe can I interview you Cassie ing scampered toward Khloe in a skin tight white jumpsuit with red Racing Stripes her hair Bound in a shimmering Crimson scarf she was looking vaguely in chlo’s direction as she approached her eye on the phone she held
Out toward her please call me Chloe she said Cassie nuzzled in so that they were both facing her phone Cassie’s extended arm above her called up Chloe the sense of taking a selfie in a stadium she submitted to a pavlovian urge to smile but it took her only a moment to realize
That Cassie was recording and that she was standing for an interview so guys Cassie blurted in the breathless tone Khloe had gotten familiar with on those YouTube videos I’m here with my friend Chloe Dr Chloe she’s the main scientist on Imperium right now I’m the only scientist I’ve heard she’s brilliant
What are you you working on out here in space I’m part of a project that studies griffi tropism in plants so in 20 seconds will you explain gravitropism to us Chloe found that she could in fact explain gravitropism in 20 seconds many interviewers gave her 30 seconds or even
A minute but it turned out 20 seconds was enough yet even from the periphery of her vision Chloe recognized the face that Cassie was making a thousand young students she’d met slow students or students only pretending to be slow had offered up the same theatrical glazed stare for material they wished not to
Contend with for some reason whether it was factoring polom in eth grade or integrating Predator prey equations in an upper division ecology class that’s fascinating doctor so guys there you have it graviter pism on Imperium Dr Chloe maybe we can talk more as the evening goes on right now I want
To see if we can catch up with a real Knight of the British Empire sir Alexander Dunn he’s dancing across the hall right now but maybe we can get him to talk to us for a minute thank you Dr Chloe Cassie gave Khloe a social lights peck on the cheek and launched herself
On an interception course with sir Alexander in his robe of wandering Stars the celebration was far too small too intimate to have been called a Gala anywhere on Earth for that matter Chloe suspected that most of the guests had living rooms larger than the aspirationally named for tuna Ballroom
But the opening Gala was the largest party that had ever occurred in space in fact it was the largest orbital Gathering of humans in history 24 people floated around between the hotel staff of Imperium the visitors and management from orbital Ventures headquarters the CIS lunar rocket crew a social media
Influencer and seven of the wealthiest people in the world not far from where Chloe watched the South Atlantic rolling beneath them as Imperium rotated away from Earth Miriam was handing one of the gracefully curved tumblers to Lee his jumpsuit fit slender in the waist and slim in the legs simple and featureless
As a black silk Scabbard he nodded at miam as they passed one another like dancers at a ball then nodded in Khloe’s direction as he strolled over he raised the cup toward her gpy kloe shouted over the music Lee lifted his eyebrows in mock or real surprise or perhaps play y
He responded in a way she didn’t understand I’m sorry she said the only Mandarin I know is Gumpy Lee raised his cup to salute her again and sipped from the gold mouthpiece which drew the Cup’s contents along a winding path of capillary straws embedded within the
Walls of the tumbler as though he were drinking from a sippy cup in the form of the orbital Ventures teardrop this is a fascinating vessel he said in an accent that that Chloe found Flawless the company wanted a cup that would work all over Imperium you can take it to the hub
It works even in Zer G what are you drinking bro Ando Chloe admitted that she didn’t really care for tequila Lee scrutinized his tumbler again as though he were reconsidering the virtues of his drink I find it one of the world’s perfectly designed beverages his voice was like a river
Pebble that had had every Edge Gra down to a curve I’m crazy I know I’d rather have a good hoppy IPA but beer was one of the drinks they would not find on Imperium too much could go wrong if someone had to hustle to the hub after drinking a
Beer there had been enough wet burps already without adding fizzy drinks to the menu the two of them occupied one corner of the Fortuna Ballroom surrounded by observation Windows the rotation of Imperium brought the earth into view again a dusting of Lights Illuminating the Brazilian Coast strings
Of glowing pin Pricks edging into broad lightless swaths in the interior of South America on the opposite wall the word Insight formed in great blue letters as though emerging from a dark fog have you gotten to know the other guests Khloe asked Lee’s face resolved into a meditative cast as though her
Question were a calculus problem that he was trying to set up we trained with one another a long time before our trip Lee’s tone was such that Khloe couldn’t tell whether he had gotten to know the other guests more closely than he had wished to during the training or whether
He was simply not interested in gossiping about them with her come to think of it she wasn’t crazy about talking with Lee either except that her job right now as she understood it was to make small talk with this man what do you think of the gala so far she asked
The revealing of Earth was quite Ive Lee said the Hologram speech was perhaps a little poetic for my tastes Helman doesn’t really talk like that I can assure you does anyone really talk like that it seemed an odd humiliation for the man who had founded orbital Ventures what do you
Mean forgive me he said I didn’t intend to speak ill of the company’s founder he began scrutinizing his mysterious tumbler of tequila once more I think I’ll freshen my drink he nodded a courtly goodbye at Chloe and retreated to another part of the ballroom nearly everyone was dancing tireless Miriam and Meredith shuttled
From one shimmying person to another passing out Bourbon and tequila in the cups that orbital Ventures had designed and iterated and 3D printed over a period of 18 months Nicholas Winter’s kesi spun Jessica Van Cleave around the center of the hall while Samir Winters kesi and Roger Van Cleave danced with
Tears of Fowler between them she was drinking as well a prerogative of her rle as host Chloe supposed Insight receded from The View screens and Bliss emerged like creatures sinking and rising in Dark Water the music felt to Chloe as though she were standing at the
Bottom of a deep Canyon listening to a geological sequence of auditory strata deposited one after another by synthesizer and algorithms over a distant pulse of Beats carving its way along at the basement rock of the sound she ventured to dance a little it occurred to her that she felt less
Uncomfortable dancing here perhaps because sir Alexander Dunn moved so preposterously even Conrad and Dion ostensibly there with Khloe to babysit danced a little sir Alexander in his wizard Robes of Doppler shifted Stars shared a passing tongue lashing kiss with Viv voltera then another at the other end of the hall with Samir
Winter’s kesi the word bliss disappeared and the screen went dark I hear you are the doctor Spock of Imperium a man said to Khloe during a break in the wall of sound Khloe turned to look at who had addressed her the captain of the CIS lunar rocket stood
Nearby he was lean and tall as an elite marathoner his face weathered with laugh lines and crows feet in a way that even the older guests faces were not like a man whose time on starvation rations had prematurely aged him his smile though was open and unguarded in a way Khloe
Hadn’t seen in many months on Imperium Dr Spock was a pediatrician Chloe answered are you talking about Mr Spock the Vulcan uh yeah Star Trek Spock I mean I guess I assumed that he had gotten his PhD he never did I think he must have had a pretty rough dissertation
Committee the music had begun again and she enjoyed leaning into him to shout into his ear another example of a brilliant scientist being hounded out of academ the captain shouted back the CIS lunar crew had changed out of their raw meat colored flight suits he was dressed
In a charcoal gray CIS lunar jumpsuit that didn’t look like it had cost $100,000 to design his name tag read Pasqual how do you like the opening Gala orbital Ventures throws a good party this place is Swanky Swanky is one word for it I guess Khloe said she had attended a couple of
Parties more her speed on aerium a handful of scientists floating in one of the labs passing around a bottle of vodka and playing Ray dull parties she supposed others might call them does sis lunar have you working while the glampers are up here she added he smiled
Weily before leaning in to shout I’m on the clock if that’s what you’re asking I don’t exactly have much to do besides cool my heels and not embarrass myself at the gala at the center of a circle of the Grandes sir Alexander Dunn had hiked his wizard robes a long way up his
Thighs in order to twerk the tightness of the fabric around his butt suggested to Chloe that he was wearing either very abbreviated underwear or nothing at all underneath sounds like a nice job Pasqual Shrugged I guess so I’m still curious how many of these can ing trips
Orbital Ventures will be able to sell especially with the changes coming for the company this might be a very short-lived route for me Khloe wasn’t sure what changes he was referring to or even whether the company he referred to was CIS lunar or orbital Ventures but the idea that the orbital
Ventures Corporation might not succeed at offering a service that people would pay for at a price that the market would bear had never seriously occurred to her like any adult with a mortgage and a car payment Khloe was aware of money and its uses but she regarded economic planning
As a distraction from the real issues of Life which for her were the energy and nutrient flows within ecosystems at some level of abstraction money might be said to represent those flows though only sloppily and irrationally unlike helman’s knack for bird dogging backers and funds Khloe’s mind did not follow
The tracks of human currency and what about you Pasqual continued continued how long are you going to be up here another 41 days 14 hours and 32 minutes if sis lunar is on time with resupply so you’re having a great time then Chloe realized when the question
Was put to her so directly so sarcastically that she was in fact having the time of her life her separation from helmond tears of Fowler’s presence and imperium’s self-involved guests notwithstanding watching them dance and drink hadn’t been so different from watching The Pale radicals emerge from her beings she was watching the two
Experiments unfold in parallel cataloging the ways that life could be teased into normality in the absence of that Mighty independent variable the Earth’s gravity even what seemed like gravity here in the Fortuna Ballroom was mere imitation the centrifugal force of a colossal til a whirl Imperium felt
Like an ordeal only because life in space was an ordeal a hope chest of stop gaps and workarounds and provisional answers to profound technical challenges Chloe loved it the way Darwin had loved the Beagle the sun had risen set risen again set again Imperium hurdled in
Silence over their home at 27,000 km per hour the glampers nuzzled and cackled drunkenly Cassie’s phone was perpetually pointed at something or someone usually herself as she narrated her inner State the the others alternately mugged with Cassie for her videos and mocked her upt talking and vocal fry are you expecting an indictment
Cassie asked Viv voltera during a lull in the music the other guests all turned to look and the question hung above the abashed group like a great predatory bird but Viv volara still wearing her silk Aviator scarf now with a furred suit that looked like Max’s wolf costume
From Where the Wild Things Are offered up the GRE half smile of a bodh satva we’ll have to see what the doj has in store for me she said I only know what I read in the Wall Street Journal what does the Wall Street Journal say you’ll have to read that for yourself
Sweetheart I’m not going to do your homework for you her rejoined her conjured a flutter of laughter from the others as the music picked up again and Cassie protested ever louder and giggling that she actually subscribed to the Wall Street Journal had the wsj app
On her phone over the course of the next revolution around the earth the guests retired in ones and twos to their staterooms I wish you all a peaceful night in toned sir Alexander Dunn with all the tenderness of St Francis waving his hands like Dove’s Wings in every
Direction Pasqual leaned in to hug Chloe and she had a fleeting scandalous thought about a goodn night kiss with him their hug was chased however and she couldn’t read his look only after the last of the guests had departed did tears of Fowler permit herself one weary
Sigh then she nodded smartly to her underlings right Nina let’s put you on first concur shift you’ll switch off at 0400 with lawrens lawrens if I’m not up by 0600 give me a call let all of us meet back in the conference room at 0630
To go over the day script Chloe came out into the silk upholstery an omnidirectional blue light of the central Corridor she returned to her cabin and lay down watching the Stars drift by from her bed she imagined or dreamed as she drifted off that Imperium was being rocked like a massive ship of
The line over a deep Oceanic wave she had been coupling Stout Links of an anchor chain from her tiny workspace in The Forecastle bending the thick rods into rings as easily as if the iron were breed dough the anchor took up one entire wall of her workspace glittering like a star
The word Insight was inscribed on one fluke Duro was inscribed on the other she woke in the dark she checked the time 0330 Juliet she had to look up on her phone what time it was on the west coast maybe she could check in with Ron
Dish him a little gossip about the gala of course she had signed the non-disclosure agreement about what she saw on Imperium during Camp days but her boyfriend didn’t count Helman would certainly find out from tiza if Chloe kept quiet the internet seemed to be down however maybe there was a problem
With the router or maybe the laser transmitter it was hard to tell from what she saw a tiny icon of a lighthouse sweeping the corner of her phone screen she had the ruthful Insight that if she had brought her laptop from her lab to her cabin at the end of the day she
Could do a little more troubleshooting of the internet now but it was her insomnia that had kept her from bringing her laptop back to her room in the first place she had learned over hard nights of graduate school that her body’s capricious wakefulness at 3:00 or 4: in
The morning had to be managed with care when she woke in the middle of the night the thing she most wanted to do and the thing that most undid her sleep was to get on the computer but Chloe knew that she would not be getting back to sleep
Soon she wondered whether anyone else on the station was aware of the internet outage she dropped her phone on the bedside table and picked up the radio Communicator pulled her earbuds out of their storage pouch no one on channel one she scrolled through the channels on channel 7 she heard
Something not responding trying auxiliary Conrad what’s your ETA the voice was pasqual’s there was a clipped quality to his voice a blunt affect that had not been there when they flirted At The Gala I’m making my way over the starboard delta wing Conrad answered his voice too sounded oddly clipped
Something wasn’t right Chloe knew she realized then with a creeping dread that both men were speaking through space suit transmitters I’m heading for the starboard hatch now Conrad announced where’s the alarm Chloe wondered Imperium had an emergency protocol if anything had happened that would have required an emergency Eva meteorite
Whole breach electrical failure a warning claxon should have gone off why then had she heard nothing a chill that she hadn’t felt in many years not even during the blackout in the airlock the day before descended on her quickly so quickly that she was not conscious of
Her calculus she weighed the data before her everything she could see and hear and much she could not someone had overridden the station’s alarm had wanted Imperium sleepers not to wake up she chose silence she muted her transmitter slipped out of her bed and into the hallway she was still wearing
The orbital Ventures dress jumpsuit she had been too exhausted at the end of the gall to do anything but uncp her key fob and flop into bed and patted down the corridor to the hotel Administration office empty she walked back up the hall peered up the darkened gamma spoke
Leading to the hub the ventilation fans were laboring at a pitch that was strange to her entering starboard hatch Conrad said over Channel 7 yeah there wouldn’t have been enough clearance to get a pmu in here Chloe began to climb the gamma spoke ladder toward the Hub toward weightless
In silence and darkness the blue lights of the hotel Corridor below glowed with a nocturnal bioluminescent chill floating now she topped the ladder and peaked into the axle empty Chloe wondered where Nina’s concierge post was intended to be it wasn’t as though Imperium had a reception desk like some
Orbital Double Tree maybe she was still down in the Fortuna Ballroom Chloe glided up the axle toward the bridge and the Levits reception hall the hall was also empty but she saw something else there the bulkhead connecting Imperium with the CIS Luna rocket had been closed had there been some kind of
Decompression event on the rocket a meteorite strike a shipboard explosion but a meteorite strike would have awakened everyone and why was Imperium So Silent now the absence of the emergency claxon chilled her far more than if it had been blaring Chloe made her way back down the
Axis Corridor to the axle crossed over into the access Corridor for the bridge Dion’s voice came over Channel 7 Conrad enio Noel are you all aboard what’s your assessment the timber of Dion’s voice suggested to Khloe that he was unsuited on the bridge probably Conrad’s on board Noel the CIS
Lunar co-pilot replied holy [ __ ] this thing’s a mess the instrument panels melted 2 3 4 at least five connectors totally fused in including attitude Thruster control main Thruster control she broke off I don’t understand how this didn’t trip the fire alarm Conrad added why would Nina close the bulkhead without
Sounding the alarm Chloe drifted slowly toward the glare of the lights coming from the bridge at the end of the corridor from her spot up the hall she could see the flicker of the security camera monitors on the bridge computer shuffling slowly through each dim room of the public areas on
Imperium she saw her own lab on the screen viewed from above the windows of the growth Chambers hinting at The Light Within shining on the beans the light of a June day at high latitude any word on where she is Dion asked Pasqual no sighting yet Dion answered
Chloe heard his voice coming from the bridge as well as from her earbuds find her if you can Conrad said she didn’t just walk off something about Dion’s Voice or maybe it was simply the commitment Chloe had already made to secrecy kept her from entering the bridge right then beneath her conscious
Powers of deduction some part of her had concluded that the claxons had failed to sound for a reason that the bulkhead to the CIS lunar rocket had been shut for a reason she took in the access Corridor outside the bridge above her head a single surveillance camera stared in
Silence she felt a small consoling relief that wherever Dion was on the bridge he didn’t seem to be sitting in front of the security monitor ERS Chloe pushed off one wall to put herself behind the camera she wished for something she might improvise as a lens
Cap a wad of chewing gum a ball of tape she held the back of the camera as though she held a cotton mouth behind its head Conrad’s voice broke in over Channel 7 [ __ ] Dion what just happened Dion was silent the Rockets been uncoupled Conrad nearly shouted it looks
Like one of the port verer has fired enio did you get a connection from one of the controls pasqual’s voice came back over the channel there’s no voltage in any of these controls one of the computers must be malfunctioning Dion come in we’re pulling away from Imperium we’re
Accelerating the Retros are firing our controls are totally dead over here Dion Come then it was silent Chloe craned her neck to peek around the Bulkhead into the bridge Dion sat with his back to the bulkhead strapped into one of the control chairs watching the massive CIS lunar rocket pull slow away from
Imperium on one of the exterior monitors the narrow side hatch of the rocket gaped open the disconnected or cut umbilical cables of the three people aboard now trailed behind like three spindly fingers snatching it thin air Chloe hung suspended Between Heaven and Earth more than she had ever felt it in
Her last 238 days on Imperium she now knew the rootlessness of her condition she wished that her feet had never left the ground but her Instinct called called her out of this Ry the rocket is launched she heard Dion say to someone she couldn’t see on the
Bridge if he was saying it into his transmitter Chloe heard nothing on her earbuds she realized that he must have switched channels take your position and wait for my signal Chloe probed at the security camera’s mount it wasn’t mounted on a swivel the whole field of
View in this Corridor was maybe 15° and it seemed doubtful that she’d be able to twist the camera’s view elsewhere without making a sound Dion sat 5 meters away four monitors glared before him above the instrument panel and to the right of the windows of the bridge the
Views on three of the monitors seemed to cycle from one room to the next every few seconds while the fourth remained trained from the outside on the airlock where the CIS lunar rocket had been docked now that monitor was fixed on empty space the rocket had tumbled and
Receded to the size of a toy on the screen she watched Dion remove the bridge headphones Spool in the cord and hang them up he pulled out a small pouch from his jumpsuit probably his earbuds she had to move she had spent the last 30 seconds calculating the route she
Would need to take to avoid showing up on the bridge security monitors she knew it was not a complicated problem it was the kind of brain teaser that she would have found entertaining if she were sitting at her desk on a rainy afternoon in Corvalis she needed only to know how
Many camera feeds there were and how many seconds each feed appeared on a screen now though she bed at modeling in her head the cycles of the monitors she abandoned the problem half done when Dion slipped his earbuds on she could hear him unbuckle the belts that
Strapped him in at the captain’s chair Chloe pushed off from the wall leaped as ungainly and Silent as a bat through the bridge axis Corridor back to the axle then down the length of the axle to the axis Corridor for the lab wi she knew
That the pmus she and Dion had used the day before were still stowed in the airlock that the company had used for The guest’s Space Walk and the time it would take her to get suited the CIS lunar rocket might be a kilometer away maybe a little farther if its Retros
Didn’t fire again the ship wouldn’t be moving fast if she could reach them using the pmu she might have enough propellent to bring one of them back before they suffocated Chloe rushed through the many ifs and mites as she bounded from wall to hatch to Corridor to hatch she
Imagined the camera’s lenses upon her like a prickle she sensed on her skin she glided like a shadow through lab module 3 then she stopped herself through the window at the other end of the lab Chloe could see that the airlock Beyond was lit she floated up to the
Window she saw Nina and Vitali moving about in there they wore space suits and pmus perhaps the same pmus that she and Dion had worn the day before for one moment Khloe’s mind filled in a flurry of details to confect a pro-social narrative out of what she was seeing
Nina and Vitali must be mounting a rescue effort for the three people drifting away in the rocket never mind that neither Nina nor Vitali was an astronaut never mind that there had been no emergency CLA in and Chloe noticed after a few seconds nah and Vitali were
In no hurry to leave Imperium neither did they seem to be going through depressurization protocol their visors were open they were not doing an oxygen pre-breathe at last Chloe understood they had already been outside the station now they were back in that moment she saw the Trap that she and all
The guests were in she felt a visceral urge to get out of sight it was dark enough in the kamra Joe lab that she might not show up on the bridge monitors but sooner or later nah and Vitali would come through that hatch she considered returning to her own cabin pretending to
Have seen and heard nothing and she understood if Dion Or Nah or Vitali meant her any harm they would find her exactly where they expected to find her there was a path in Chloe’s mind that she had not used had nearly forgotten about in the years since her lonely
Fieldwork in the dark divide bears and cougars moved there even a few reintroduced wolves but humans were the only ones that had ever scared her a long way from selfservice a long way from a road she had had to run one season had had to hide now her mind
Dropped once more into that mental Furrow that trail of fright and and muscle memory that had once been necessary for her survival she slipped out of the comra Joe lab and pushed herself into her own lab space and the dim light she snatched from pouches and cabinets anything her instinct told her
She could make use of a Philips head screwdriver a plastic scraper she used to Wrangle potting soil a roll of masking tape a ball of twine she used to make moisture wicks for her seedlings a permanent marker if she’d had the foresight to change back into her regular work jumpsuit after the Galla
She would have had half a dozen zippered Pockets to slip her cargo into as it was she stuffed it all as best she could into the two slender hip Pockets she darted from her lab back into the main lab Corridor and from there pushed off into lab module 4 Penn State was
Supposed to be renting this module again in a couple of months for now though it had been dark and empty since January the layout here was nearly the same as in her lab Chloe felt around in the dark for the seams of the close out panels she found the door to the instrument
Locker that would have housed the ion trap mask spectrometer in her lab and that she confirmed with an almost silent wrapping with her knuckle seemed to be empty in this module awaiting whatever Machinery pen state was planning to bring up she opened the latch then taped
The mechanism down so that she would not be shut in then she shimmed in feet first she pulled the door shut behind her breathe she told herself she slowed her breath will willfully mindfully down into her solar plexus granted herself The Refuge of three wakeful inhalations in which she imagined every planet of
The solar system traveling in its eonic ellipse whether she lived or died whether Imperium kept to its tiny nested course or fell out of orbit and burned up into dust she contemplated the disaster she had awoken to Pasqual Noel and Conrad would be dead as soon as the rocket tumbled into Earth’s atmosphere
If they hadn’t suffocated already they might still be punching every unresponsive button and toggle on the rocket even now not knowing how dead they were was she any less dead trapped in the strange far away Manor House of Imperium with three killers at least three and why a working hypothesis
Wasn’t hard to come by the guests were among the world’s wealthiest people and they were more remote than the most secluded Amazonian tribe on Earth harder to rescue than any Castaway in the Pacific Ocean it seemed odd to her that Lee and dun and volara and the van
Cleaves and Winters kesis would be taken hostage here they hadn’t exactly brought briefcases of currency with them but a wealthy hostage could prove valuable for many purposes the compartment she had shut herself in felt something like she imagined a coffin would close and Pitch Black Chloe yearned to say one last
Thing to the three people tumbling away in the rocket not to call them back or say goodbye but to say some wise thing that would justify all that had happened and that would happen but if they were even conscious now to listen their communication had been lost when their
Umbilical cables had been cut or disconnected and anyway whatever she wished to say would have been for her own comfort more than for theirs she scrolled through each channel on her Communicator there were 10 channels on imperium’s radios and for all she knew Dion Vitali and Nina might have brought
Other walkie-talkies with a totally different set of frequencies but she heard them on Channel 8 as soon as Vitali is out of his suit that was Nina she thought last night’s Butler now her voice sounded clipped and quiet with none of the lethargic self-importance that it had when she had announced the guest’s
Arrivals on Imperium she sounded in her own way a little like Conrad and Pasqual had in the last minutes Chloe had heard them like a person facing a crisis let’s get everyone formed up Dion said be that proceeding with plan Chloe closed her eyes in her shortened coffin chapter
3 Cassie Ing and the rest of the hostages sat in a sorry Herd on the floor of the Fortuna Ballroom the giant screens beside them had no BL or breathy slogans to declare before them in front of the wide view of Earth the three hostage takers kept watch Nina and
Vitali stood on either side of the the entryway Arch and held their guns as though they were the handles of invisible leashes connecting them to the prisoners Dion stood before the center of the bank of Windows the final vertex of the deadly triangle though he wore the same blue orbital Ventures jumpsuit
He’d worn the day before he had also put on sunglasses even if she had been able to get close enough to look Cassie would have seen nothing from looking into his eyes except a funhouse reflection of her own condition in the mirror of the lenses
Dion also had a gun holstered at his rib cage his left hand meanwhile held a curious device curved and tapered that looked to Cassie like a large ungainly cell phone all the hostages regarded this other object with a vague dread which stood in for their dread of the
Man the object itself however would have seemed simply odd if it had appeared in one of the many cabinets of Imperium it looked more than anything like a miniature Steely coffin with a pistol grip okay people he said in a soft voice even a gentle one though Cassie had no
Difficulty hearing him time for instructions if you behave wisely you’re going to find this whole process quite painless we’ll conduct our business together like civilized people and you’ll go home to live the rest of your lives good the flock of prisoners was silent except for a barely audible groan
From one of them the groaner sounded like sir Alexander D Dion pursed his lips and regarded them with an expression that Cassie couldn’t Divine he might have been a chess player taking in a field of Pawns and knights and Bishops let’s operationalize what behaving wisely means here’s the
Definition I propose in your case wise Behavior means that when I or someone on my team tells you to do something you do it it’s that simple with his right hand Deon Drew from his breast pocket a tiny remote which he used to turn on the large view screen beside the
Hostages now viewer discretion is advised but I want to make sure that you fully understand your situation the screen filled up with what looked like washed out security camera footage of the exterior of Imperium the CIS lunar rocket was visible on the screen docked at the airock leading to the levitas
Reception hall the side hatch was open three filaments snaked out of the rocket Cassie recognized the same umbilicals that had failed her the day before on the spacewalk then there was a silent languid blast of the Retro thrusters the rocket uncoupled with the station a few moments later the umbilicals went taut
Then snapped that brief tension was enough to drag the rocket into a lazy spiral as it drifted off like the slow motion pass of a football receding in the field of view until it had diminished to a gray point on the monitor anio Pasqual Noel JNS and Conrad
Whitaker were on that rocket Dion announced they’ve burned up over the Indian Ocean by now is that clear there was a flush of gasps at least one person began a stifled sobbing Cassie ing clapped her hand over her mouth as though there was something for her to
Say that she had to stop herself from saying to put it another way you’ll have to stay up here with us until you can provide what we are asking for if you help us with what we require my team and I will go home in the Starliner capsule then you can reestablish
Communications with orbital Ventures or NASA or whoever you like he seemed to turn his attention towards sir Alexander Dunn when he said this surely someone will send up another rocket for you the hostages took in his speech where they sat they looked faded the brand new jumpsuits and Gala costumes that some of
Them wore seemed now grubby and wrinkled far cheaper than they actually were Nicholas and Samir wore matching jammies like grade school friends on a sleepover most of the staff still wore their employee uniforms when one of the hostages spoke his voice seemed to startle the others how much do you want
It was Roger Van Cleave I’m glad we understand each other Roger I knew that you would catch on right away Cassie couldn’t tell whether Dion was mocking him he didn’t seem to be in spite of what he was actually saying Dion’s voice seemed deep and generous as
A monarchs all human activity really can be reduced to economic relations don’t you think here’s how much we want you all to contribute $8 billion once you deposit $8 billion worth of cryptocurrency into the digital wallet I provide you you’ll be free to go there was a general groan you think I
Have 8 billion [ __ ] dollars Roger asked not 8 billion each Roger do you think Miriam has $8 billion lying around Dion strolled from his spot in front of the earth toward them also Roger I think it’s important that I make my preferences clear he pointed his odd
Device directly at Roger there was no flash of light no report but Roger began to howl and wrie in pain Dion pushed a button on the device again and again once for each word of his next softly spoken sentence like four pitiless punctuation marks I dislike foul language Dion lowered the wand and
Walked back toward his original spot Roger’s wailing subsided after a few moments to a whimper as his wife held him and he rocked In Her Arms a raking of dark Jagged Wheels had begun to appear across his face and throat as I was explaining before Mr vancleave’s Outburst I’m not asking for
For $8 billion from each of you that would be unreasonable however we have done a little research into your finances and we are optimistic that between you all you’ll be able to put your hands on that much money Cassie pondered his words we have done a little research it seemed
Hard to believe that we refer to just Dion Nina and Vitali just how would three of them have gotten through orbital Ventures background checks independently how would they have stowed away guns in that torture wand the hostages each looked in a different direction as best they could they kept
The people with the guns in view without looking directly at the guns or the faces of the people holding them some took in the view of the earth below that heedless rolling mass of theft and exploitation Cassie had the sudden thought that the Earth was not so very far beneath
Them excuse me Cassie said she felt as she sometimes did in stressful situations embarrassed at the smallness of her voice Dion turned his mirrored sunglasses toward her do we all have to give the same amount out of the corner of her eye she noticed vitali’s smirking but Dion
Remained aloof behind his sunglasses no Miss in he said at last we’re demanding 8 billion because we know that’s what all of you are able to pay together some will pay a larger share of it obviously what was it the Russians used to say Vitali from each according to his ability Vitali smiled
Again did you change the Wi-Fi password even in his sunglasses Dion seemed flumix by her question um yes we did we thought about leaving it as it was but we decided that your having internet access May interfere with the hostage taking of course he continued we’ll need
To give you an opportunity to talk with financial advisers and Banks back home you’ll each have a little supervised internet time even you miss ing like the others Cassie ing considered the view of Earth she found it curious how all her viewers all her fans were living their lives down there
Casually unaware of her fate if that was Australia beneath her it looked like Australia anyway she had something like a 100,000 fans just in that one spot she could taken the view of all of them in a few minutes she had far more fans in Australia than in Vietnam a vager of her
Fandom that had always seemed strange to her though since she never posted content with more than a word or two of Vietnamese it wasn’t really that strange once she thought about it the thought of giving up whatever quantity Dion demanded so that she could live so that
She could return to Earth gave her almost no ill feeling at all she had worked hard for the money sure especially at first first but there was a kind of Easy Come Easy Go feeling to the prospect but she also felt a chill near to panic as she wondered how she
Would come up with whatever her part of the ransom was were they expecting her to sell her car her house how long would that take while she floated up there at gunpoint and Skyped who her brother who would be able to liquidate all that for her she estimated that she had no more
Than $50,000 sitting in bank accounts in lines of credit right now stuff she could put her hands on quickly as New South Wales rolled past beneath her Cassie ing silently calculated that her ready cash made up only about 610,000 of 1% of $8 billion all right Dion addressed the
Group we need to begin soon if we plan to finish on time you’re each going to be put in touch with your financial advisers to figure out what you can liquidate Cassie wondered what kind of asset manager a person like Miriam might have for that matter how much did
Someone like Miriam even make working for orbital Ventures her wealth might be far greater or far less than Cassie imagined Vali pointed at Lee you first come with me he waved with his gun in the direction of the corridor Lee stood up with what seemed a preternatural
Grace like a ballet dancer emerging on stage Vali kept his pistol trained on him as Lee walked into the corridor the sleeves of vali’s jumpsuit were rolled up to reveal the corded muscles of his forearms which looked as though they had been ratcheted into high tension ropes
On a windless he followed close behind the slight billionaire Dion slipped the strange device into his pocket and Drew his pistol from the shoulder holster he stood before them between their miserable Circle and their view of the earth and the way that armed men have exercised the Monopoly of force since
The dawn of civilization his body ready to Spring under a kind of wary Focus that seemed to lens great diffused clouds of sensory data into a single intense light by which he could see what his hostages couldn’t Dion neither smiled nor frowned he seemed a man meditating deeply upon the powers of the
Cosmos why are you doing this to us Samir kesi asked the sound of his voice struck Cassie strangely his tone wasn’t remonstrating rather his trim British Public School accents seemed to communicate nothing but a Fearless curiosity a beused smile crept across Dion’s face I thought our motives would be obvious we want
Money yes you’ve made that clear Samir said but for what even if you manage to steal that much 8 billion is more than you’ll ever be able to spend is $8 billion more than you’re able to spend with all due respect Mr kesi you have no idea how much were
Capable of spending but I’ll give you a hint the reckoners are not common thieves if you all cooperate and return to Earth in one piece you’ll see soon enough how we put the money to use Dion’s voice sounded benign even avuncular the reckoners yes the group that just took
You hostage I invite you to contemplate why we’ve targeted you then the oppressive silence returned Cassie had expected or perhaps hoped that Dion would explain himself a little more plainly she had her own guess which had the benefit of Simplicity a group that calls itself the reckoners is there
To make some kind of Reckoning but honestly she wouldn’t have to guess if he would just explain what the name meant she could hear two people whispering with one another maybe Roger and Jessica Dion turned his attention toward them or seemed to it was hard to tell which way his eyes looked beneath
His sunglasses for Roger and Jessica must also have concluded that he was staring at them because they went silent eventually Vitali brought Lee back from wherever he had been taken Cassie searched his face for any sign of what might have happened but the man bore himself with an unreadable Poise his
Eyes expressed nothing his face as still as a card Sharps even his hair looked as perfectly in place as if Itali had just taken him out of the crowd for a trim and how was Mr Lee’s visit Dion asked Vitali as the large man larger even than Dion took up his position
Again we made only first contacts Vitali replied Mr Lee’s asset managers have begun making preliminary inquiries the word is out now Cassie was surprised at vitali’s voice high and lilting in congruous with the size of the man offering barely a hint that English was not his first language she realized only
Then that she had imagined Vitali to be a communicator of grunted Slavic inflected monosyllables but Dion gave no response to vali’s accounting the silence was enough to entice Cassie to sneak a look at Dion and the pistol in his hand he was holding his other hand
Up to the receiver in his ear even close by his reply was too low for her to hear not that big she thought she heard him say then take care of it Dion’s mouth was an implacable Grim line that emitted those quiet words with all the self-possession of a concert chist beginning a
Cadenza something was up Vitali shot Dion a glance with a raised quizzical eyebrow Cassie looked away again afraid of her own voyerism of These Quiet Predators she took an Australia once more as it drifted beneath her very well Dion announced after a long terrible moment of silence mess Winters crashy you’re next Cassie
Wondered how she felt to about the married couples being taken together she was in no position to protest it and at any rate she wasn’t sure that it was even unfair that they should go together she knew it would be less terrifying for her to go with another person however
Lee seemed to have come out of his lonely interview none the worse for wear Again The Silence from time to time she could hear Dion murmur something into the transmitter of his headset now he covered his mouth when he transmitted Cassie could make out nothing that he
Was saying anyway he seemed to say very little for the dozenth time she wished that her phone hadn’t been confiscated wished she could pull it out of her pocket and start recording Cassie turned away from the earth to search out the faces of the others most did not meet her gaze they
Seemed to be meditating in silence like wretched socialites in a Quaker Meeting Roger Van Cleave stared at an imaginary point in the middle distance or perhaps at a real point on Earth with a smoldering malice purple welts raked garishly across his face Jessica Van Cleave seemed to be staring into her own
Lap her face made Invisible by the disheveled mass of her hair only sir Alexander Dunn sought out Cassie’s eyes with a world weary smirk that seemed to say can you believe how stupid all of this is he had flirted so shamelessly and creepily with her the night before
When he was dancing across the Fortuna Ballroom in that Wizard’s Roe she had believed at the time that it was highly unlikely she would ever sleep with him but not strictly impossible she had found it excited her last night in a way that she had not anticipated to be
Wanted by one of the world’s wealthiest men the fact that he was 40 years older than she that he reminded her of some kind of pale unblinking lizard did not totally outweigh the strange energy that had seemed to constellate about him as though he were in fact a wizard of great
Power now now though he looked seasick and blur eyed his robe slovenly perhaps it was Chagrin that he was communicating however he seemed to Cassie to be Beyond Chagrin the saddest most chagrined of all was tears of Fowler she sat hugging her knees in the crowd of prisoners her
Collar open and her necktie slack as though she were a stock Trader of another era beaten down by a rough day on the trading floor she met no one’s gaze then a pop punctuated the air and another a second later Dion stiffened team report he said into his transmitter
No longer bothering to cover his mouth the three crisp syllables of his order audible to everyone in the Fortuna Ballroom Cassie realized after a moment’s wondering that a gun had gone off that was when Cassie noticed something else that had escaped her up to this point the scientist Chloe or Dr
Chloe or whoever she was wasn’t among the prisoners chapter 4 24 minutes earlier Chloe waited in the hollow where she had planted herself she didn’t trouble herself with the question of what she was waiting for whatever danger was coming there was no sense inviting it early a memory intruded on her even now
Of a game of hide and seek she had played once as a little girl she had hidden herself then a crouching wide-eyed mammal behind a hedge of mock orange in the stifling heat of a July Twilight it had occurred to her for the first time in that moment that the Real
Playing field for hide and seek is the whole world why not take a bus to Sacramento and hide there why not fly to India there was no bus to Sacramento now a new wash of adrenaline coursed through her body every few minutes whenever she heard Dion or Vitali or another Voice
Come in over Channel 8 that Spike of hormones which she both expected and found unpredictable honed her attention such that it grounded away many biological deficits and annoyances the short night of horrible sleep the months of her body’s Corrections when she moved from the zero g of the Hub to the
Centrifugal force of the rim a whole summer without once feeling the grass under her bare feet there was another voice on Channel 8 another male I’m back in bateo the voice said Khloe left her key fob on her desk Khloe felt an awareness of having made a fatal mistake yet she
Also felt an inexplicable gratitude that the hatches of the labs had remained unlocked she never locked them who else would have then check the labs Imperium is not that big the voice was Dion’s take care of it Chloe wished for some vision of the lab outside her locker she
Could if she wanted push the panel door open a crack however anyone who entered the lab would notice that the door was unsealed and a jar she kept still then and her mind retreated into its ancestral line of thinking that unreasoning sequence of wordless images that moves through the neurons of any
Cornered Bobcat any wolf held at Bay by hunting dogs a minute passed 2 minutes Chloe could not count the time of the excruciating wait before she heard someone click the light switch in lap four even with the earbuds in she heard that click she was aware or perhaps only
Imagined she was aware of a tiny buzz in the LEDs outside the black box where she waited she had never known the LEDs in the labs to buzz perhaps they had been damaged in the electrical short the day before her feet were braced against the back of her Hiding Place her Palms
Rested against the inside of the panel door like Atlas anticipating the weight of the world on his shoulders for the rest of time she heard or felt the working of a hand on the latch of the panel door felt it almost before the hand knew what it was to do with the
Latch like a cat she sprang pushed off the back wall drove all her explosive force against the inside of the door the door flew open a few inches before it slammed against some meaty obstacle what the arm of the man his shoulder whatever Chloe hit his grunt of surprise and the
Crisp nauseating crack that sounded when the door struck him released in her a follow-on flush of adrenaline poured over the waterl of hormones already coursing through her body had she a moment to reflect on what was happening inside her she would have remarked that this was a perfect example of a positive
Feedback loop in a biological system such a good example that she could have Incorporated it into her lecture on the subject in the undergraduate biology major class but she had left off reflection her mind had contracted to a pinpoint of aggression that flared out in the tiny blazing seed of her
Hypothalamus the door of the case stood open now and the lights of the lab module flooded in dazzling her eyes the man grunted in shock though he appeared as only a hazy bundle to her eye floating across the lab module from her pocket she drew the screwdriver like
Someone launching off a diving platform into a deep pool she pushed against the back of the cabinet where she had hidden just as she sprang out a human projectile she heard the crack of a firearm at that moment time slowed down she expected the bullet with an equin
Ity that surprised her but she felt nothing she did not have the time to remark that even from Less Than 3 m away the man had failed to hit her not withstanding the time dilation of her awareness it did not occur to her that the man was an object in motion
Remaining in motion across the lab module he moving she moving the bullet a tiny spinning third dancer in the lethal Gallard Chloe was harder to hit than she might have guessed if she had had time to guess it and he whoever he was had not considered Newton’s verdict over his
Behavior when he had pulled the trigger Khloe watched the man pushed backward head over heels in reaction to the firing of his pistol until he landed with another meaty thud against the opposite wall of the lab after a full somersault he fired again wildly but Chloe took no time to reflect on that
Either she was flying across the lab at him whoever he was she punched upward with the screwdriver connected she felt the warmth of his blood gush over her hand the man grunted once more and was still he floated derelict Chloe reached out for a handhold to steady herself her
Eyes at last adjusted the man was one of the orbital Venture support staff Khloe vaguely remembered him from the opening Gala dispensing drinks and running errands like a gopher his name tag said Angel she had driven the screwdriver in at the base of his chin just above his
Adams Apple all the way to the handle the shank had penetrated Khloe guest through the man’s soft pallet perhaps all the way into his cerebellum Angel’s blood clouded about the lab module in a Mist then Khloe did something that she had never once resorted to in 20 dissections when she was an
Undergraduate biology major not once in her Summers working at the cadaver lab back at Santa Rosa Junior College she threw up Chloe had acquired her sense of Detachment early in life like an inoculation her childhood had been solitary clouded by the emotional distance of her parents her mother’s
Narcissism her father’s Len silence and all her years studying the processes of life in their nutrient flows and biochemical feedback loops and hormonal semiosis had only deepened her far off sense of the world unaware of what she had been about Khloe had through all her 33 years cultivated a talent for seeing
Life as nothing more than a curiosity neither sacred nor profane and death as a thoroughly natural consequence of entropy unbinding every ordered process sooner or later but she had never killed another human being she knew that she had to come back to herself that she had
No time to be squeamish the pistol angel had used floated nearby the bullets had possibly penetrated the whole of Imperium and the reports of the shots had certainly been audible throughout the Hub if not through the whole station first things first she swam through the suspended muck of blood and vomit toward
The pistol she recognized the Glock 18 a pistol her father had loved one that seemed absurdly overpowered for firing in zero gravity at least the man hadn’t switched it to fully automatic it spun like a fatal top at the other end of the module she tested the mechanism found 29
Hollow point bullets still in the magazine she would have given a lot for a holster right now but finding none on Angel’s corpse she had to accept the risky indignity of slipping the pistol into the overstuffed pocket of her blood speckled jumpsuit the hole if it had
Been breached would have to wait at any rate no alarm sounded to announce a pressure drop in the module she had to move if someone hadn’t seen her on the security cameras already she would be seen soon enough in the Man’s Pocket she found a second magazine which she
Slipped into her own she had the sense of things moving quickly now a train barreling down a track the scenery slipping past her before she could notice its passing she called on a final reserve of scientific dispassion and wrenched the screwdriver from The Corpse’s throat she wiped the tool off
On her cuff and stowed it in her other Hip Pocket she left the slowly spreading cloud of Gore and glided across the lab module access Corridor to her own lab she could access the Bridge’s command and data handling system through her laptop make a radio call for help that
Way she was surprised for only a moment to find that her password to enter command and data handling no longer worked she clapped her computer closed pulled herself out into the lab module Corridor made for the axle that hallway was silent all along the length of the Hub
Compared to the abbatar she had just left the place seemed preternaturally clean security camera stared at each end of the corridor like two black hooded Cobra heads she would make her way to the bridge at the other end of the corridor if she could secure the bridge
She could hold up there until rescue hauling at one of the handholds she crept up the axle every 2 m of her Voyage she looped her left arm through the next hand hold along the hallway pointing the pistol with her right at the entryway to the access Corridor of
The bridge it intruded on her Focus briefly that she was leaving smears of the man’s blood on each of the handholds pristine grips just then a figure swung head and arm around the entryway of the bridge access Corridor at the other end of the axle about 40 m away almost
Before it registered in her brain that the woman’s hand held a pistol and that it was firing on her Chloe had launched herself across the hallway a darting fish in a long barrel the White Blank cylinder of the axle offered her no cover at all except for the entryways to
The three long spokes of Imperium these were array around the midpoint of the cylinder about 10 m from Khloe each 120° from its neighbor both Alpha and beta spokes the spokes with the elevators were sealed with circular hatches like the automatic lens cap of a massive camera but gamma spoke with the ladder
Was open she zigzagged up the hallway launching herself off the walls of the corridor like a billiard ball in an improbable Bank Shot the shots rang out one after another two shots three shots unlike Angel the woman had the chance or the presence of mind to brace herself
Probably by looping an arm through a handhold just inside the bulkhead of the access Corridor to the bridge Chloe felt The Parting of the air around her ear as a bu it passed close by she dropped into the shaft of gamma spoke she hauled on the first rung of the ladder to Vault
Herself over and feet first down the spoke toward the rim like a child getting a merry go round up to speed she pulled against another rung as she floated farther down then another a couple of meters farther until she was descending quickly enough that she wondered whether she would be able to
Slow herself on the rungs of the ladder when she began to reach the bottom like someone who had jumped deep into the ocean Chloe craned her neck upward as she dropped looking back toward the aperture of the spoke that she had entered for any sign of the woman she
Drew the pistol from her hip pocket and held it above her head the posture felt both like and unlike firing from a prone position the way her father had taught her one summer half a lifetime ago yet she was lying on nothing dropping toward the rim like a driven spike it was just
As easy to think of the pistol she held up as a tiny engine if she fired she would be pushed even faster toward the rim she wondered whether firing would get her speed up enough to kill her when she hit it would have been an interesting physics problem for someone else at
Another time still she kept the gun trained on the opening as she dropped by her estimate she had dropped about a third of the length of gamma spoke but the shadow of the woman and her weapon never appeared at the aperture to fire on Chloe and she would have to begin
Slowing herself down if she wanted to land easily on the rim she reached out and felt one of the rungs slaping against her open Palm as she sped by then another the third rung slapped into her Palm like a baseball she had caught bare-handed a female voice was coming
Over her earbuds saying something she couldn’t attend to something about her about a weapon the third wrong slowed her enough that she could grasp the next wrong without wrenching her arm she pocketed the pistol once more and allowed herself to slide down the ladder into the corridor brightly lit hushed
And empty she heard Dion’s voice coming over her earbuds copy that stand by Chloe saw a security camera above her head Out Of Reach in the form of a glossy black Dome rather than the long-bodied fixed cameras in the hub she couldn’t remember at what intervals the security cameras
Were placed on the long lonely ring of the passageway as she looked beyond she saw nothing but the sky blue curve of the hall Rising before her and behind her she had not chosen to drop through gamma spoke with any strategy in mind she wondered for a moment whether taking
One of the elevators on one of the other spokes if she had been able to would have provided her a better Escape Route without knowing where Dion was she couldn’t say and in any event all spokes connected to the same silent Eerie ring Chloe raced through a mental map of
Defensible spaces she could go from here she uttered a single nearly silent curse for having forgotten her key fob again in her cabin then she cursed under her breath a moment later when she realized what she had just left behind Angel’s corpse must have had a key fob on it she
Had been so intent on the second magazine and on finding Angel’s apparently non-existent holster that it hadn’t occurred to her to hunt for Angel’s fob she had to get better and quickly at having things occur to her she considered a moment if the hostages were being kept in one place there weren’t
Many places on the rim to put all of them together the Fortuna Ballroom maybe the gym possibly the restaurant or the salarium the ballroom was close by between Alpha and Gamma spokes on the wheel the other spaces were farther away between Alpha and beta spokes the medac
Was nearby docked to the airock adjacent to the infirmary if she could get to it she could be gone in a minute splashing down in the Pacific within an hour she took a single step before she heard the voice of the woman again over the channel not Nina but the other a high
Nasal voiced American with a whiff of a plan’s accent I’ve got a visual on her she’s on the main Corridor moving from gamma toward Alpha copy that came a man’s voice vali’s Chloe realized with a new flush of focus that his voice traveled not only through her earbuds
But also through the corridor itself Vali was near perhaps as close as the infirmary or the library Chloe turned around and ran up the corridor away from The Voice she had heard she heard the midwesterner voice Meredith’s voice Chloe thought over her earbuds announcing Khloe’s movements she’s doubled back running past gamma and
Toward beta as though Khloe were a competitor in an obstacle course I’ve got hostages here Vali replied copy that I’m on my way this voice over Channel 8 was Nina’s on Earth Khloe had always considered herself more of a diligent tireless jogger than a sprinter but now under the insatiable adrenaline Bloom
Released through her Limbs and moving in the equivalent of 85g she sprinted like a rabbit as she ran her mind raced through a sorry catalog of unacceptable hiding places the next security camera in the corridor loomed before her as she approached she paused a bare moment from
3 m away she took aim at the camera shot it out a spray of plastic shards Spangled the carpet where they fell I’ve lost visual Meredith announced over the radio without a key fob there were few places Chloe could enter the conservatory the library perhaps the fit fitness center she scanned the doors
Within view on this stretch of the hallway on one side there were two doors leading to conference rooms Imperium harbored an aspirational number of conference rooms on the other side the door to the galley and adjacent to that the open Al Cove of the diner where she
Had eaten most of her meals for the last 8 months the door to the kitchen was locked she dashed into the AL Cove of the diner the ghostly Shadows of low cafeteria tables and chairs spread around the empty room the blue washed light of the corridor filtered in
Through the broad main entrance to the diner wide as the AL Cove of an airport bar the overhead lights came up then in response to her entry she scanned about for a security camera there was none that she could see she supposed that the cafeteria was visible from the security
Camera she had just shot out in the corridor she glanced at her regular seat the utilitarian bench where she had spent many of the hours she wasn’t in the lab or in her cabin the place where she read papers and emailed colleagues and ate her microwave meals where she
Had once thrilled herself sexting with Ron it had seemed a lonely dreamlike space even when she wasn’t the only person sitting there rarely had there been more than four or five people in the whole cafeteria of one time even back when the kamra Joe lab was fully staffed now as its empty Darkness
Disappeared and the glare of the overhead lights with Nina somewhere close by in the corridor there was only nightmarish Solitude and Dread about the place the cafeteria connected to the kitchen through an interior swinging door Chloe was struck by the foolishness of the design a kitchen with One locking
Door and one door that couldn’t be locked perhaps the wide entry to the cafeteria could be closed off with the mesh gate like a restaurant in the food court of a mall she had never seen it closed though and had never in her time on Imperium thought to look for a gate
She slipped Through The Swinging Door reached over as she entered to hit the light switch disabling the most sensor yet she heard Meredith’s voice again she’s gone into the gley of the employee Diner Chloe would have cursed if she had heard Meredith say that an hour before
As though she had suffered a reversal in a game of hide and seek but her minutes in Terror had slowly dropped her into a kind of Flow State her fear had settled over her like a call of so much sensory data information no more or less remarkable than an itch or a stomach
Ache she would hide would run not on the strength of any deep reflection but rather because that was what she was made to do as though she had transformed into some articulate prey animal like a talking rabbit Meredith must have seen the door swing open on a security camera
In the kitchen surely there was a camera here though in 8 months of microwaving meals she had not noticed it Nina’s voice more tightly strung than it had been before came over Channel 8 I have her hold up in there Chief could I get vital over here to back me up vital
Still sh roning there was a pause then Vitali bring back Nicholas and Samir we’ll continue their calls later Dion’s voice was unreadable to Chloe now if she had ever been able to read it in the past copy that Vali said Nina give me two minutes babe Chloe crouched and
Crept back into the cafeteria she got the best angle she could looking out on the corridor she saw no one nah would not be so foolish as to just stand in front of the kitchen door yet the main Corridor offered no real secure vantages Olivia for’s design had dispensed even
With the garbage cans in tall Planters of an earthside Hotel her look was sleek and minimal punctuated by nothing more than low slung chairs and tables at long intervals a decorative ribbing of false buttresses every few meters but even these small touches would have been too
Small for nah to hide behind except for The Columns of the spokes which came down into the center of the hallway at three points on the Rim there was nothing for a person to hide behind in all 628 odd met of the Ring Corridor Chloe did not see anyone from
Her Vantage perhaps nah had taken a prone firing position farther down the hall or perhaps she had opened up one of the conference rooms opposite the diner and hid in the darkness of an open doorway Chloe considered the factors she knew and the ones she didn’t know Meredith was watching the security
Cameras known others were tracking her besides the voices she had heard on the communicator unknown Nino was nearby known how she was armed whether with a handgun and hollow points or with a long gun with rounds that could punch through the hole or with some other weapon entirely unknown Vali was coming known
She had less than 2 minutes known she slunk back into the dark of the kitchen even in the dark she knew this place as though it had been the kitchen in her house which in one sense it was she felt around for the storage cabinet against the back wall her fingers brushing over
The tops of bottles and containers until she found the Slick plastic of The Jug she was hunting for she groped around for the other end of the room stumbling once to find the GLE sad Liquor Cabinet anything would do here she reached in and her fingers closed around some kind
Of stout angular bottle she had the fleeting irrelevant realization that it would be a shame if out of the entire Liquor Cabinet she had happened to grab the bottle of Jefferson’s Reserve Kentucky bourbon as silently as she could Chloe sneaked back into the cafeteria near the door she set down the
Plastic container a nearly full 3 l jug of sunflower oil holding the other bottle she moved as close as she could to the entryway without being visible from the corridor she got a look at the bottle as she opened it and she regarded it as a good omen that it was not the
Jefferson’s Reserve but rather some kind of nearly undrinkable lime flavored vodka that one of the the Penn State team had left behind she poured the Vodka out in a broad puddle over the tile at the edge some began to soak into Olivia for’s sky blue carpet Chloe moved
Quickly now she ran back to the kitchen cast about in the dark for some kind of fabric there was a laundry hamper near the exterior door for rags and dirty napkins she pulled the whole bag off its rack went to the stove lit one of the burners I’ve got a visual on her
Meredith said it looks like she’s lighting up the stove come again I’m serious Meredith answered I’m watching her now she’s lit the stove but by that point Chloe had managed to light one of the dirty kitchen towels thankfully a bit greasy and dashed out to her puddle of spilled vodka she threw
The ignited towel into the puddle which went up at once into a tiny Lake of cool blue flame people were chattering over Channel 8 Chloe’s Focus was elsewhere though she threw the rest of the towels and dirty napkins in a p and proceeded to soak them with the oil from the
Plastic jug 10 seconds later she was tossing the oily claws into the alcohol fire as the Blue Flame by degrees turned to the yellow of a grease fire a black noisome smoke began to billow out into the corridor the smoke alarm started blaring behind that sound she could just
Make out in her earbuds some kind of frantic chattering between the people hunting her she couldn’t hear what they said probably Chloe realized with some s satisfaction they couldn’t hear one another over the smoke alarm either she pulled out the pistol again and assessed the depth of the smoke in the corridor
The sprinklers hadn’t kicked in yet and the carpet of the hallway was beginning to smolder she couldn’t see nah she couldn’t see 5 met up the corridor it was time just before she dashed her eye fell on the fire extinguisher hanging on the wall of the galley years of observation into the evolutionary
Processes of living things had given her the intuition that the fire extinguisher would be useful in ways she could not anticipate that it was pre-adapted for many functions as a biologist might say with the pistol in her right hand and the fire extinguisher in her left she
Sprinted down the corridor away from the cloud of smoke away from the sprinklers which had just engaged away from nah on the other side Chloe ran toward beta spoke she might be running toward Vitali she knew if he had decided to take the long way around the rim to cut her off
Meredith announced her movements over Channel 8 as she ran up the corridor when she passed the next security camera she coated the Little Black Dome with a spray from the fire extinguisher she disliked her own plan taking the beta spoke elevator back to the hub struck her as Reckless the elevator could be
Controlled from the bridge she was sure if Meredith shut the elevator down Chloe would have to climb out of the car and climb the emergency ladder in the shaft of beta spoke it would be a simple thing for Meredith to fire on her from the elevator Landing an Insight dawned on
Khloe a dismal understanding but without recrimination or self-hatred that she should never have come to the rim in the first place she would have been better off staying put in lab module 4 clouded by the haze of Angel’s blood but so long as Meredith occupied the bridge Chloe
Hoped at least that Meredith was the only one up there there was nowhere on the rim to go that she couldn’t be seen she ran the last of the distance spraying another security camera with foam on her way the landing for the beta spoke elevator a thick tapering pillar
Like the central column of a towering bank took up the center of the rim Corridor here the car was at the bottom awaiting her Chloe climbed in the car and punched the button for the Hub she could see nah up the hall taking up a firing position with a pistol as the
Door shut and the car glided into its Ascent Chloe flattened herself against one side of the cylinder of the car presenting as narrow a profile to the doors as she could yet she heard only the plink plink of two bullets striking at what she imagined were the exterior
Doors of the elevator she would have expected even a hollow point bullet to penetrate both exterior and interior doors on an elevator neither door seemed especially thick perhaps Nina was using safety slugs to minimize overpenetration in the pressure vessel that was the space station or perhaps the doors were
Better reinforced than Chloe realized she’s on the elevator a breathless Nina called called out over Channel 8 copy that I have her Meredith replied Chloe waited for the car to stall in response to a shutdown order from the bridge prepared herself to climb out when the moment arrived the elevators of Imperium
Were unlike any that had ever been made the car bore a display above the curved doors to announce to passengers what percentage of Earth’s gravity or more properly the centrifugal force that mimicked gravity the car was currently subjected to the car glided quickly on its cables the display already read 18%
Of Earth’s gravity please grasp a handhold the handholds around the circumference of the car were the same leatherbound teardrop Loops that beautified the public areas of the Hub of Imperium but the greatest difference in the car was in its doors each car had two sets the central opening telescopic
Doors which would have been at home on any terrestrial elevator and the circular hatch that took up the ceiling of the car one ENT the car on the rim the same way one would enter an elevator on Earth The Landing at the Hub however occurred between the hatch at top the
Car and another circular hatch on the cylindrical wall of the axle Chloe wondered why Meredith had not arrested the car’s Ascent the car continued to rise until it seemed that it was going to dock with the hatch of the axle perhaps Meredith had not been quick enough to shut down the elevator
Perhaps shutting it down had not occurred to her Chloe put those musings out of her mind she anchored herself with one of the car’s handholds and trained her weapon on the hatch that would open onto the axle the panels of the circular hatches slid open no one
Waited just outside the door Chloe could not see far down the axle in either direction but she imagined that Meredith had set herself up at one end or the other hiding in the mouth of one of the axis corridors in all likelihood she had taken up the same position she had taken
When she had last fired on Chloe just inside the B head of the bridge access Corridor anchored to one of the handholds near the hatch it was a gamble to assume that Meredith was where Chloe had last seen her however it seemed unlikely that Meredith would have
Traversed the entire length of the axle to post herself at one of the access corridors on the other end Chloe knew that she had to get out of the elevator at some point Chloe pocketed her pistol and took up the fire extinguisher in both hands braced against the floor of
The car she shot a swath of foam into the axle a great marshmallow curtain hanging in the weightlessness like a thick flocky nebula between the entrance to the elevator and the bridge she hoped she had guessed correctly where Meredith was she’s filling up the axle with foam she heard Meredith complaining over
Channel 8 in a tone that reminded Khloe of a petulant College freshman Khloe took her chance then she pushed herself off from the floor of the elevator car and into the axle just as the circular hatches shut behind her she darted one glance toward the access Corridor to the
Lab modules saw a clear way for herself and fired the extinguisher in the direction of the cloud she had made she hugged one edge of the cylindrical wall of the axle she could hear a pistol shot ringing out through the axle another shot a third whether in reaction to the
Sound of the extinguisher or just some intuition that Khloe was making her move Meredith was apparently firing into the cloud of foam from the other end of the corridor Chloe did not consider her chances of being hit by a stray shot or the relatively high probability of being
Hit by a bullet ricocheting off the concave end of the axle that she was speeding toward 2 seconds of fire extinguisher exhaust was enough to accelerate her more quickly than she was comfortable with she sped toward the opening of the axis Corridor to the lab modules until she slammed into the
Bulkhead separating the axle from the AIS Corridor Chloe shook off the pain of the impact that shot through her back she shot one more squib of exhaust to the side of her she glided out of the axle and into the axxis corridor as a fourth and fifth shot rang against the
Wall where she had just been Chloe grabbed one of the handholds in the corridor to arrest her flight she hitched the trigger of the fire extinguisher into one of her stuffed hip Pockets Drew her pistol again she looked about her for the corridor security camera she pulled the roll of tape from
Her pocket pulled a strip long enough to W into a ball and stuffed the ball in the lens socket she floated through the axis Corridor and into the lab mod modules closed the security hatch between the modules and the access Corridor listened for any signs of
Meredith but the next thing she heard a long minute later was Dion’s voice coming over her radio on Channel 8 chapter 5 Dion surveyed the circle of hostages in the Fortuna Ballroom while he waited for Chloe to answer the asymmetry of information flow between captive and captor seemed curious to him the
Reckoners had studied these hostages the billionaires anyway from the moment they had been accepted as the first guests of Imperium he knew their real estate holdings their stock portfolios their divorce settlements the price to earnings ratios of their various companies what did they know about him whatever they thought they knew about
Him his NASA celebrity the interviews the up from poverty story about his childhood in St Louis all of that was worse than false rather that whole constellation of journalistically true events from his life confected by press secretaries and marketers into inspiring narrative functioned only to tell a certain self-satisfied population of Americans
What they wanted to believe about themselves what did these hostages know about him indeed when his parents and his older sisters moved up to St lwis before he was born every one of them probably already carried the tumors in their bones their brains barming like
Flexs of yeast as they slept and ate and worked Dion had been 9 years old when his father fell ill his parents took in that news with a resignation that had struck Dion even then their acceptance that this was the lot of people who had lived where they had lived who had
Worked where they had worked hung over Dion from that time on like a fatal Dark Star his parents had fought back of course pushing as best they could against the companies of the place down river the great false ecosystem of refineries and factories its exhalations of vinyl chloride Benzene chloroprene
They joined lawsuits filed the ever renewing sheath of paperwork that seemed designed to never be completed consulted loyers coughed up stories in their own flesh for a legion of toxicologists oncologists occupational epidemiologists but how does one fight against an ecosystem by the time Dion’s mother died the year before the first of
His sisters got sick 10 years after his father had wasted away the settlement check arrived $4,000 Dion used his share to repair the roof of the family house and pay down his car loan Dion brought his attention back to the Fortuna Ballroom he appraised the hostages in front of him
They had a rumpled almost shabby air both The Hungover wealthy ones and the orbital Ventures people who had worked far into the evening and then awakened to being taken hostage before they could get 4 hours of sleep they kept their eyes on the floor most of them most of the time though
Every so often one of them would sneak a glance at him as though trying to find his eyes behind his sunlasses Dion disliked the necessity of lumping them all together the rich and the poor the ACT seemed inimical somehow to the reckoner mission for example Miriam she
Hardly deserved the kind of trouble she was in now even tiza and Eric were just working stiffs of A Sort to be sure they had cast their lot with some true social parasites and tiza and Eric made more than they deserved for the parasitic work that they did but they were no
Closer to being billionaires than he was however he was not about to drift away from the work at hand with his philosophizing Vitali and nah had come into the ballroom together when he called them back a few minutes ago go Itali appeared a bit more amped up than
Dion liked all the more reason for the team to reassess its position slow down apply pressure more mindfully Vitali seemed to be enjoying the power dynamics of standing over the hostages scowling at them corralling them with his pacing like some terrifying bipedal sheep dog for all Dion knew maybe Nina was
Enjoying herself as well standing like a gaunt receptionist at the door however ever nah was at least a bit more circumspect Dion had to admit to himself some enjoyment at what he was seeing but the pleasurable sensation Dion felt in his chest had little to do with seeing a
Bunch of wealthy folks brought low before him he considered that satisfaction fleeting as a sugar rush not worth indulging for more than a moment rather his quieter steadier sense of fulfillment was the consequence of an operation carried out like clockwork a plan with a Myriad of decision points
And contingencies refined into a single course of action that had so far within broad tolerances minimized danger and loss of life the sabotage of the CIS Luna rocket the rerouting of control of the Rocket’s thrusters to the station’s Bridge the luring of the three Pilots aboard in retrospect what now seemed
Faded had in fact been a long series of careful gambles Each of which had required a cool head to order the tossing of the dice it was time for a new plan now surely but he admired how far the original plan had taken them much that could have gone
Wrong had gone well the overloaded circuit in the lab module airlock for example could have killed all the hostages during their space walk that too would have been poetic justice of a Kind the deaths of some of the wealthiest people on Earth because they had plac their trust in the
Blandishments and self assured press releases of a breathtakingly rickety company but Dion was glad that the renner’s operation hadn’t been aborted by wiring problems on the station of all the many things that might have gone wrong he would not have predicted that Khloe would slip the drag
Net of course he disliked losing Angel as well he wondered how an unarmed woman Khloe’s size had managed to overpower him once the danger was passed he intended to study the security camera footage to see how she had done it but 6 months of planning and training had
Yielded at least a partial provisional Victory so far if Chloe could be neutralized and there were several ways to do that zadok could get the money siphoned into a recker’s account earthside and Dion and his team could get themselves off Imperium quickly had she been any other person on the station
The most straightforward method for counteracting Khloe would have been to seal off the lab wi from the bridge and open the airlock flushing the air out of her redout but leaving out any other consideration he had dismissed that strategy as promising a low likelihood of success she had a pressure suit and
Oxygen tanks available to her in that wing and she had trained to suit up quickly in a decompression event if she was unlucky she might lose Consciousness before she could get her suit on but if she remembered her training she’d very likely survive the decompression and she’d be motivated then to discharge all
Kinds of Mischief in any event he was obliged to use a lighter touch regardless of how much he disliked her armed presence on the station the reckoners had not trained for this peculiar contingency however in the absence of further instructions Dion would have to deal with her somehow he couldn’t have her
Shooting his people the least distasteful way of neutralizing her would be to appeal to her rhetorically who was it that had said diplomacy was the pursuit of War by other means Dion turned away again from the hostages walked to the other end of the ballroom
To look over the Earth out of earshot he spoke again into the Silence of Channel 8 Chloe I know you are on this channel let’s talk was she in fact on this channel if she wasn’t neither She nor the hostages would hear him embarrass himself and if his hunch was right there
Was no reason to begin a negotiation if he couldn’t transmit confidence it wasn’t too much to imagine that Chloe had awakened in the middle of the night she complained of insomnia all the time now that he thought about it and that she might for some reason have listened
In on the communicators it was one of the more parsimonious explanations for her hiding herself in the lab modules before the rest were rounded up Chloe listen he said not pleading not weedling but rather like a classroom teacher offering a student one more chance to straighten up I have no intention of
Hurting you if Angel was isn’t clear about that that’s his mistake this can all end peacefully if you’ll just let us carry out our business here Dion waited over the dead air for a response he began to walk back toward the circle of hostages what the hell are you doing
Dion Khloe’s voice came subdued and small over Channel 8 Dion permitted himself a smile not that anyone could see it for interpreting her behavior so well we’re engaged in political action you don’t have to be involved in any unpleasantness Chloe you stand aside we all go home it’s that
Simple what about Conrad and the sis lunar people she asked her affect seemed flat and gray as though it were metal plated did you kill them for not standing aside of course she would have heard the dialogue with Conrad if she had been searching the bands last night that had
To be done Dion said he didn’t owe her any more explanation than that that Conrad had known the station systems better than anyone that he had had as much combat training as any of the reckoners and more Zog combat training that the CIS lunar Pilots had been only unfortunate collateral damage when
Conrad was removed Dion wasn’t going to lose even more initiative by explaining all his reasons what do you want then from you just that you don’t act foolishly we won’t have to trouble you at all if if you’ll stay out of our way while we conduct our
Business there was a long pause Dion imagined her barricaded in her lab pondering the broad chessboard of Imperium between them I suppose your definition of not acting foolish includes my not sabotaging the Starliner capsule well played Khloe Bonia Dion thought whether by Design or dumb luck she had ensconsed herself between his
Team and their ride back to Earth Meredith had already enforced formed him that Chloe had disabled all the security cameras in the laboratory Wing including the airlock where the Starliner was docked he disliked having such an important part of the station blacked out to his forces I’m not sure why you would want
To sabotage the Starliner Dion mused that would just keep us all up here shooting at each other longer she didn’t know how to fly the Starliner herself he was sure of that she wouldn’t have made the threat she had if she knew how to fly but the thought that she might be able
To get aboard mangled the Starliner controls the way Nina had done to the controls of the Cuna rocket gave him some misgivings the only other way down was the Medevac capsule that was under recker’s control of course dock to one of the two emergency airlocks on the rim
But the medac would hold only two and it couldn’t make a powered Landing it was just a tin can loaded with parachutes as helpless as an old Gemini capsule on the way down Dion wouldn’t be escaping that way even if things went South he wasn’t about to
Plop down in the Pacific Ocean or Siberia if there were still reckoners aboard Imperium he would either complete this Mission or die with them but he wouldn’t abandon them the thought of the medac capsule did give Dion pause however in a flash of improvisational Insight he saw a method by which the
Team might retake the initiative and oblige Chloe to react to the reckoner decision Loops rather than the reverse it would involve some unpleasantness but what manner of unpleasantness had they not prepared for this struggle may be a moral one or it may be a physical one or
It may be both moral and physical but it must be a struggle Dion crossed the ballroom with Nina first then with Vitali he explained the two tracks of his plan the carrot of the medac and the Stick of killing the hostages one by one a wolfish smile crossed vitali’s face
When he heard the new plan Dion didn’t like that and he gave the broad man a look this wasn’t an operation where bloodlust was a virtue Dion walked back to the position he had taken when he guarded the prisoners he transmitted again to Khloe in a voice neither theatrical nor passionate but loudly
Enough that all in the circle could hear him Chloe listen he said I’m going to tell you this once I don’t want to kill any of the people we’re guarding here it works against our goals if you will come out and give yourself up in the next 10
Minutes everybody lives and we all get to go home safe if you don’t surrender in 10 minutes though we’re going to start killing people I know you don’t want that on your conscience Dion remarked to himself how traumatized the hostages seemed now almost all of them took his pronouncement in complete downcast
Silence only one he thought it was the humiliated tears of Fowler let out a high choked SOB that she could not stifle immediately on Channel 8 there was no sound for a long moment finally Chloe was able to must a flaccid assessment you sick Dion I assure you
I’m one of the only healthy ones on Imperium are you going to risk your life and the lives of others to keep a handful of billionaires from losing a small fraction of their wealth you’re an observant person Khloe so please take me at my word you will come unarmed down
The alpha spoke elevator in the next 10 minutes or I will begin killing hostages Dion out it was then that he realized that he had said twice what he had promised to say only once but Dion had discovered over long years that embarrassment was an unproductive emotion he redirected
Himself by addressing the hostage Mees I want to concentrate your attention on the task at hand if Chloe Bia doesn’t give herself up we have a few minutes before I need to choose who will be leaving us you guests have lived your lives as though there were no such
Thing as a common good as though all good things on Earth are privately held that belief is after all why the reckoners picked you in the first place perhaps a visible sign of the suffering of others will awaken your empathy however and the likely event that even the death of someone sitting
In this room right now cannot awaken your moral imagination he looked around at his charges to assure himself that they were following the offer he was about to make what you may remember from your earthside training is that there is a medac capsule quite nearby the capsule
Can carry two of you if any two of you are ready to pay you may head for home and safety as soon as you have made your payment Dion looked over the downcast group group The Solen eye contact that peaked out from them every few moments like a flash of baleful firefly
Light of course if more than two of you are ready to pay we can auction the seats to the highest biders I start the bidding at1 billion us there was a general groaning and rolling of eyes from those who did not have a billion dollars Dion remarked to
Himself that none of the billionaires looked particularly sanguin either Roger seemed to be Whispering something Petty or perhaps venomous to his wife Lee scowled and muttered with sir Alexander Viv regarded the news with what looked like stoic resignation staring out at the Earth like a deposed Monarch at length Samir Winters keshi
Spoke up I think that several of us would pay that kind of money but it’s not that simple to move a billion dollars into Bitcoin you say you have researched our finances so you must know already that we don’t have a billion cash on hand at least I don’t have that
Much cash practically all of Nicks and my money is tied up in equities and real estate it would take us weeks to liquidate a billion dollars Dion listened to samir’s excuse impassively the reckoners had talked about that challenge at length during the months of planning for his part Dion
Had anticipated that lack of liquidity would be the biggest stumbling block but during the strategy meetings zadok’s representative had argued ued for the strategy some of the guests are worth a lot more than a billion dollars Lee is worth at least 12 by himself a motivated seller can Jin up liquidity very quickly
All one needs is a phone and a willingness to Discount Assets Now they were going to find out whether zadok’s man had been right they had a few hours to work maybe more than a few somebody NASA probably would mount a rescue operation as soon as they knew
What was going on up here surely the word had gotten out by now an hour after Vitali had taken Lee to make his first call to his financial people but a rescue mission would still take a while NASA was not the kind of place that could approve a new cafeteria menu in a
Few hours much less put together a rescue operation on such short notice CIS lunar or maybe Hesperus might work faster but neither company had security teams trained for boarding operations for counterterrorism for hostage negotiations the hesperis people barely seem to have active shooter training for their facilities on Earth the reckoners
Had to work fast but they didn’t have to work that fast Dion felt gratified at the way both carrot and stick had presented themselves in the new circumstances Dion impassive behind his aviator sunglasses loomed above the hostages while he EES dropped on their low talking we don’t have much time Samir
Was murmuring but I wonder whether we could each make a good faith estimate of how much we could come up with on short notice how short a notice Roger asked 10 minutes not that short they must know we don’t have a billion dollars hidden in our mattresses hold on I’ll ask and then
Came the tenor school boy voice again pardon me Commander Stubblefield if we can make you a commitment of the money will you commit to not killing any of us Dion affected a look of contemplation as though considering an offer ER that was not exactly to his liking very well if you make the
Commitment of the money you’ll be given the chance to move it into cryptocurrency and transfer it to us but he continued the 10-minute deadline excuse me 8 and A2 minute deadline applies to Khloe bia’s course of action not yours but if hypothetically we could agree to the $8
Billion commitment in the next 8 and A2 minutes can the top two biders go home and the rest of us live Samir was beginning to annoy him still Dion admired the man’s ability to confront his situation headon and Dion had to remind himself influencing Khloe’s course of action and how quickly she
Took that course was really means to an end and not the end itself there were many other methods of handling Khloe if she didn’t give herself up but a thought intruded on him then would the hostages still respect him if he went back on his threat it took him a moment to
Articulate this anxiety to himself he did however have the presence of mind or emotional maturity to recognize the thought for what it was an unseemly preoccupation with what other people thought of him of course the reckoners should take yes for an answer he didn’t want any killing of hostages Just for
Kicks he didn’t want to be that guy I think we’re beginning to understand one another Samir we’ll accept your offer if some combination of you can make the commitment in the next few minutes sir Alexander spoke up or croaked up would you accept voting stock in the Hesperus Corporation or in orbital
Ventures do you think I’m an idiot Mr done no it’s cash or death you have less than 8 minutes tears of Fowler commented in aen voice I think we may see some drop off in orbital Venture Stock price over the next couple of days sir Al Ander the hostages turned back to one
Another I would pay the whole 8 billion right now if I could Viv voltera stage whispered but I’m sure you’ve seen the stories about my company therapist stock has suffered a drop of its own at the moment this drew a grim chuckle of commiseration or perhaps shot in frea
From a couple of the men in the circle just at the moment somebody whispered everything I have is in real estate State she continued but what if one or a small group of us of you I mean put up the whole 8 billion the rest of us could pay our shares plus interest
Back to you when this is over and we have some time to liquidate assets it occurred to Dion that even facing indictment even as a hostage waltera was a very skilled cheerleader talk is cheap Viv answered Roger Van Cleave if someone wants to sign a contract to to that effect I’ll think
About loaning money on reasonable terms until then the only ones who should be speaking are people who are ready to commit are you saying you’re ready to commit Lee asked if yeah I’m ready Roger looked directly at Deon for the first time since the rebuke with the active denial device I bid $1
B250 million I can liquidate that much in 48 hours Dion checked his watch he wished he had set a timer when he made his threat to Chloe had 4 minutes passed or five he transmitted to Meredith on Channel 8 bridge this is the ballroom keep your eye open for activity in the
Alpha elevator Chloe may be headed that way please arise us if she does Roger that Ballroom Dion watched the guests scooting little by little across the floor as they sat crisscross applesauce and tried to speak to one another perhaps they didn’t even notice that they were moving they went by in such
Small degrees and at such long intervals leaning far forward to hear someone else in the group talking quietly then scooting a foot or so forward to hear better but within a couple of minutes the guests had formed an inner circle where they could confer and bargain the orbital Ventures employees scooting out
Of the way of the billionaires little by little sat more and more in silence at the margins as usual they depended on the largess of others it was a shame to submit f folks like the station employees to the Reckoning Dion mused but like Rosen CR and Gilden Stern they
Did make love to this employment they were not near his conscience of the hotel guests only Cassie ing sat in the Outer Circle with the orbital Ventures suckers Dion had discounted her as a hostage long before the guests had even begun training for their trip to Imperium Cassie scarcely had $2 million
To her name much less 2 billion granted million for Hawking lip products on Instagram seemed like a nice job for a 26-year-old but her money was small potatoes in this field it barely added up to a tip for the reckoner hazard pay she was definitely Outer Circle Lee and Roger continued
Conferring I must not have expressed myself well Lee was saying I’ll try to rephrase I believe that if we begin from a principle of cooperation we may arrive at the 8 billion figure more efficiently than if we simply bid against one another for the two seats I will pay my
Share but I don’t intend to pay more than my share cooperation fine that’s great Roger blurted the contortion of his facial muscles accentuated the heat Rays purple wheels across his skin like the garish lines of a topographic map somebody’s getting killed in the next 2
Minutes and it won’t be me or my wife sir Alexander flashed a rise smile it won’t be you under any circumstance ounces they want your money remember 2 minutes left Dion asked himself had so much time passed already he glanced he hoped surreptitiously at his watch Roger had been exaggerating or panicking there
Were still more than 3 minutes remaining Dion wished again that he had remembered to set a timer for the stopwatch it was a remarkable thing to have forgotten given his training okay best estimate he thought to himself the Dead line is 0925 hours 0925 0925 it occurred to him as good ideas
Often do at inopportune moments that a smartphone assistant could be programmed to listen for phrases from its user and set a timer automatically you have 10 minutes a person might say and Siri or whatever program replaced Siri would know what they wanted and start the timer without prompting of course you’d
Have to leave your phone microphone on for that so wouldn’t work as well for a hostage taking like this not if you were trying to minimize evidence but it would be good for making coffee or going down for a nap someone like Roger could probably write it into the app over a
Long weekend Nicholas and Samir winter keshi had been whispering to one another as Lee and Roger bickered Nicholas broke in at last I think Mr Lee has a point those of us who can raise the money quickly could agree to pay 8 billion for the group we can can set up a system
Where those who paid are made whole by the rest of us when we get back to Earth no offense but I wouldn’t exactly trust a handshake agreement with everybody here Roger countered and anyway how are we going to figure out who pays what all these people he gestured at the cooks and housekeepers
In the Outer Circle do they just pay nothing while the guests pay a billion each Dion held his tongue it would have brought him great satisfaction to say that yes this was precisely the idea behind the reckoners that these billionaires would for once in their
Lives pay the bill for all but this was not his conversation to facilitate Samir answered instead Roger every one of these employees could give you everything they own and it wouldn’t add up to 1% of a repayment let’s cover this people are depending on us fine fine
We’re running out of time I want to get this in writing Roger you just said yourself that we Running Out of Time how are you going to get an agreement in writing are we going to type out a contract on our phones they took all our phones that’s
My point Miriam who sat at the outer margin but was more and more able to follow the conversation as the volume had risen called out there’s a moleskin journal and pens in every room maybe they’d give us the paper to write out a contract and who’s going to draw it up
Roger spit back at her did anybody in housekeeping bring their legal team I’m not a contract attorney Nicholas said with a kind of Pep Squad earnestness but I have passed the California bar Roger turned to face him are you licensed to practice law in space Nick if you aren’t
Then what the fudge doesn’t matter which bar exam you passed there’s no time then we ask for an extension this isn’t a term paper we’re turning in Dion checked his watch 0925 and 14 seconds casting one of them out of the airlock right now when the guests seemed so close to a
Breakthrough struck him as singularly counterproductive but he reminded himself the intended audience for his threat had been Khloe Bonia not the hostages with one slim access of hope he got back on Channel 8 Bridge Mrs Ballroom any movement on Alpha elevator Bridge here no movement on the elevator
Chief Dion could not help heing a weary sigh the old line from Orwell’s essay about shooting the elephant came to him unbidden I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool he had spent part of the last 10
Minutes contemplating the people before him weighing each of them in the balance of his discernment and now over 10 minutes since he had made the threat he had identified dispositively who should not be made a sacrificial victim none of the guests of course could be cast out
Of the airlock not even Cassie ing a little fish in imperium’s big pond it would be foolish for the reckoners to so carelessly alienate 12 million Instagram fans as for the orbital Ventures staff it seemed ironic given the reckoner philosophy to kill folks from the kitchens or from housekeeping even
Though these were hardly bluecollar Joe’s sixpacks all of the Imperium staff had college degrees stock options with orbital Ventures vested retirement plans Gwen new house the chef had won a James Beard award back in 2022 that left tiza Eric lawren Miriam now that he was forced to it he supposed
That tiza was the obvious choice this unpleasantness did seem like a responsibility for the ranking manager okay Miss Fowler Dion said please go with Vitali Vitali took one solemn step forward to Dion’s surprise tiza seemed to have composed herself over the last minutes while the guests bickered and
She stood with a kind of cold and unassailable dignity wait said Eric assistant vice president of guest experience he stood up next to tiza can I go instead I don’t have time for this Dion thought Eric leaned in to give tiza a deep unprofessional tongue kiss Dion found the whole display unseemly he
Scanned the room wondering whether the two of them were trying to carry off some kind of distraction in the end he concluded that the kiss was really just a kiss maybe there was some kind of traditional gender roll gallantry of foot at least in the assistant vice president of guest experience’s
Imagination fine Eric fine Dion said wearily just go with fali Eric kissed tears’ fingers as they parted and she stood watching him Pace out of the room in front of Vali toward the second of the airlocks on the rim the one that didn’t have the Medevac capsule dock to
It if he were carrying out the plan again Dion would have sent Vitali with Eric or tiza or whoever to the airlock in the sixth minute or so of the countdown so that when they hit the 10-minute Mark he could signal and Vitali could flush the person out into
Space right then that would have been far more effective from a behaviorist standpoint than carrying out the threat 4 minutes late instead they all had to wait for the long walk around the rim to the antipode of the Fortuna Ballroom where the r second airlock was tiza had
Sat back down and shook with her head on her knees Miriam and Lawrence Snak their arms around her what a mess they heard the report of a pistol from up the corridor followed by a horse grunting scream like the balling of a bull Vitali report Dion barked into his mouthpiece
He signaled to Nino with a jerk of his head and she took off up the corridor at a run the bellowing continued for what seemed like an interminable long time though in retrospect Dion realized it must have only been 2 or 3 seconds then silence theal here came the voice over
Channel 8 the guy tried to roundhouse kick me a real Walker Texas Ranger maybe he thought to kick the gun out of my hand I had to shoot him he’s out the airlock now in that moment there was a stricken gasp among the hostages then a
Cry and a quick turning away as the guests and employees of Imperium caught sight of Eric rasmason when the Great Windows of the Fortuna Ballroom rotated past his discarded ragd doll corpse let’s get you and Nina back to the ballroom Dion transmitted Meredith any elevator usage none Chief Dion looked over his pitiful
Charges okay people I’d prefer not to have to do that again if you were going to come to an agreement now is the time then into his transmitter Nina take a journal and some pens from one of the state rooms chapter 6 Cassie ing listened to te’s weeping as
It grew quieter and quieter and eventually dried up into what Cassie imagined was some kind of numbness she wished she sat closer to tiza to squeeze her hand or offer some other gesture of comfort but Lauren and Miriam were all over her with the comforting Cassie felt a blooming impudent curiosity about
About the relationship tiza had had with Eric had they been having an office Affair were either of them married what were the company’s policies about workplace relationships had Eric been acting out some doomed gallantry had he believed he’d be able to escape somehow at the last moment anyway what did any
Of that matter now the money people had returned to their bargaining sitting on the floor in a tight Circle their voices had dropped to a murmur as their negotiations grew more concrete from where she sat Cassie couldn’t make out most of what they were saying but trying
To eases drop brought up in her a long buried in congruous memory from childhood when she had watched a pair of kids making out on the bus seat in front of her her family had just moved to Sarasota Florida and Cassie had started at her new High School in the middle of
Her sophomore year a mostly white school of clicks and covens that she never was able to infiltrate her fashion sense had been different then full of adolescent blunders Avant guard beyond the abilities of other kids to appreciate she had been sitting by herself on the
Bus ride with her AP History Class to an exhibition of the treasures of ramsy at the Museum of Fine Arts in St Petersburg two kids sitting in the next seat shocked her with her kissing and groping why that memory would return to her now when what she needed more than anything
Was to focus on the situation at hand struck her as foolish childish no wonder I’m a hostage she thought she had resigned herself to not heading back to Earth in the medac capsule someone much much wealthier would get that trip and anyway even if she were a thousand times
Richer than she was Cassie wasn’t even sure she would have bid on a ticket in the Medevac after all she had hated the ride up to Imperium when she had been fied on a massive luxurious liner of a rocket how would she have handled Parish shooting back to Earth packed into that
3 m long lipstick tube she felt a little like a primat ologist squatting just outside the circle of the billionaires observing them the way that one woman spent her life observing The Chimps in Africa Roger and Lee and Sir Alexander and Samir especially seemed to contort
Their faces in their own ways as they whispered Roger was the most excitable jerking his head forward at intervals like a striking Cobra when he spit out his objections his welts looked like some kind of blotchy skin condition Lee had his back to her and seemed to say
Little although everyone in the Inner Circle appeared to watch him and wrapped attention when he did open his mouth Samir had a half flitted sorrowful calm when he spoke which was often in Cassie’s imagination Samir seemed to be explaining pleading with the others frequently as he whispered he would lift
His hand with fingers poised like an image of a lecturing monk sir Alexander’s face was hardly visible behind his unruly mop of hair while he whispered no more loudly than the others for some reason Cassie could make out some of the phrases that he spoke fear of public humiliation and promisory Note
And why people carry Insurance even within the inner circle of guests a circle within the circle seemed to have formed Roger and Lee and Samir and Sir Alexander conferred together in a tiny knot Roger’s wife and samir’s husband and Viv voltera all sat just outside that Center watching the
Four men argue and haggle Nicholas scribbled in the journal as the other four men spoke once he interrupted the four with something a question or point of clarification maybe and three of the four scalled at him as though he had interrupted a string quartet they were rehearsing only sir Alexander smiled
Back wly exactly the way he had smiled right after he had thrown up in the airlock the day before Jessica Van Cleave and Viv voltera both watched the proceedings in silence once the four men at the center turned to address Viv directly as usual Cassie had trouble reading her
Expression she saw a tiny intimation of something at the corners of viv’s eyes frustration anger dread when Viv arched her brow and nodded dignified as an empress Cassie wondered how long they had been speaking maybe 15 minutes though it also occurred to her that the time was probably shorter than it seemed
She felt a rising teasing anx anxiety as the time passed sitting beneath the silent Menace of the reckoners with their guns she realized that Dion had given them no deadline paradoxically this thought filled her with as much fear as if the man had announced that the next hostage would die in 10 minutes
From the look of the other three in that innermost Circle it seemed Lee was saying something that concerned them Roger nodded along with an exaggerated rocking forward and back like an enraptured parishioner listening to a church testimony then Roger seemed to speak in Alliance with Lee his face contorted
Into an accusatorial glare at Samir opposite him he punctuated his whispered oration by pointing straight at Cassie ing his finger jabbing at her from across the room without his looking in her direction as he went on turning his gaze to the other three men one after the other Samir Shrugged finally to
Concede whatever Point Roger and Lee were making sir Alexander gave a slow resigned nod and he began scooting through the crowd from the inner circle to the outer to approach Cassie Cassie my dear he murmured as he leaned in his breath cast a rancid anerobic PA over the distance between
Them some in our party are unwilling to pay their parts unless all of the guests pay something of course that was it she stole a glance at the other three men who occupied the innermost CC Circle none were looking in her Direction they seemed to be engrossed in a conversation
Of their own how much she said I suggested that you contribute some token amount to indicate your solidarity with our losses what would you say to 1 million her first thought was that $1 million was close to half of her total worth she had no idea how she would be
Able to liquidate so much so quickly maybe she could secure a loan it occurred to her her too that she would gladly pay everything to get off Imperium that’s fine she said with what she hoped sounded like inuence Roger tantrum or Le seemed an absurd objection to raise over what was
0.125% of the total Ransom sir Alexander led her into the circle of paying hostages and related her Ascent to the terms Jessica Van Cleave reached out and stroked Cassie’s forearm gave it a single warm squeeze that Cassie interpreted as a sign of Welcome or pity or some more ancestral primate social
Bonding Roger scalled at Cassie as though it’s some petty Criminal Who had wronged him I’m not sure how I’ll raise that kind of money Cassie said Lee chuckled ruul we all concerned about that people on Earth know that we’re hostages Roger put in they’ve known since they took ximing to the library an
Hour ago your fans have probably already set up a Gund me and raised double your Ransom this possibility had not occurred to Cassie though she immediately recognized that Roger was probably correct she took in the information with what she hoped was the appropriate gravity after a moment though the
Reality of her giving up half of her total wealth or soaking her fans for that much money evoked in her a curiosity that she had not felt when she was watching the billionaires haggling before I don’t see how the reckoners are going to move all that money she said it
Seems like investigators will be able to track 8 billion worth of bitcoin if these guys are stupid enough to use Bitcoin then yes the ransom will be tracked Roger muttered almost imperceptibly but I bet they’re not using Bitcoin there are more cryptocurrencies in Heaven and Earth htio than I dreamt
Of in your philosophy sir Alexander whispered to her with a smirk some would be very challenging to Trace through the dark web still she went on if everybody knows that we’re hostages how are the reckoners going to get back to Earth without being arrested sir Alexander Shrugged I suppose that is their problem
To solve but the Earth is a big place there are many places a stall liner could land without anybody’s knowing especially if they disable their transponder let’s get a move on Roger said are you in or not Cassie nodded and so it was agreed Samir put his hand over
His heart and dipped into a bow one of the more popular replacements for the old European business handshake in the years since covid-19 sir Alexander and Lee responded with the alternative crisp Japanese style bows Roger responded with the split fingered live long and prosper salute of the Vulcans all the others in
The billionaire Circle made one gesture or another to show that they agreed without having to touch one another’s hands from the floor Samir turned to Dion I believe we’ve reached an agreement Commander Stubblefield we ask only to have Nicholas read the contract out to us Dion gave a slow nod that
Seemed to Cassie given the context oddly benevolent Nicholas began reading out the agreement with all its ancient adverbs and conjunctions whereas whereas here and after whereas here and after now therefore here aformentioned in witness whereof so far as Cassie could tell Roger Van Cleave would pay 3 b630
Million 1 billion to Ransom himself 1 billion for his wife 930 million as a loan to Viv voltera 700 million as a loan for sir Alexander Dunn Roger’s payment being the highest he and his wife would return to Earth immediately on the medac capsule sir Alexander and
Viv would repay Roger the principle of their respective loans within a year at 25% interest Roger’s lips pursed like a tiny AG reeved sphincter at this mention of viv’s name or maybe At The Mention Of Her pledge to repay sir Alexander would pay a further $249 million out of pocket
To cover his own share Viv voltera would pay 120 million out of pocket for hers jaming Lee would pay1 billion Samir and Nicholas Winters kesi would jointly pay 3 billion to cover themselves and all other hostages excepting Cassie ing who would pay $1 million $8 billion in total at last Nicholas passed the
Journal around the Inner Circle for each of the guests to sign I want a copy of this Roger said the signatories looked uncomfortably at one another then at the orbital Ventures staff Tia is it a photocopy on Imperium Nicholas asked tiza turned a slow quizzical look to
Lawren who replied in a mortified hush I don’t think there’s a copier on board wow Roger said four conference rooms no copier we’re not exactly a business Hotel so do I need to copy this out five more times Nicholas asked wait Viv said if one of us had a phone we
Could scan it and email everyone want a copy the group looked up at Dion who gave a slow judgmental Shake of his head you won’t be using our phones you wouldn’t need to use your phone commander just bring one of our phones from wherever you have hidden them you
Can hold on to it the whole time if you like just take the scan and send it to us Dion regarded the request with what looked to Cassie like pained irritation but after a long moment’s consideration he motioned to Nina with a jerk of the
The head and Nina went out she came back 2 minutes later with a scuffed up iPhone SE in a black case she held it up for the group whose phone is this she called out there was a long silence broken At Last by te’s flat voice that was Eric’s
Nah exhaled an exasperated sigh but before she could turn back to fetch a different phone tiza spoke up again wait I know his pin it’s Zero’s 0707 really nah looked as scance at the little phone as though expecting it to confirm for her the multi-layered idiocy of such a passcode but
0077 was in fact the pin okay you’re in nah said handing the phone to Dion Vali glowered over the group from the other end of the ballroom while Dion and nah entered the new password for imperium’s Wi-Fi and hunted for the scanning app the task seemed to
Require a lot of swiping and pointing but eventually Dion was able to scan the hard copy of the contract and then Nina emailed the file to the signatories Roger Lee sir Alexander Samir Viv Nicholas and Cassie Cassie had the impression of some momentous business passing her by as though she were a
Citizen of a small War torn country that had with a spasm of signatures just been partitioned Nina dropped Eric’s cell phone into the breast pocket of her uniform I’m gratified that you have been able to come to some agreement about your Ransom Dion announced he leaned over the journal that Nicholas had
Written in Reading over his shoulder am I to understand that you’ll be moving your funds first Mr Van Cleave I don’t think the contract is clear on that point Roger nodded staring at Dion with a kind of malevolent obedience Vali can accompany you to the library you’ll be able to arrange your transactions
There Jessica Van Cleave gave her her husband a questioning look Roger answered her in Spanish or maybe not Cassie thought maybe he was speaking Portuguese if his wife was Colombian then why would he speak Portuguese with her yet Cassie had taken enough Spanish in high school that she could at least
Recognize when someone was speaking it Roger’s accent now seemed odd to Cassie not not Spanish or maybe his Spanish was just that bad Roger went alone before Vitali into the Hall over the next hour Cassie felt an unexpected lightning within her the money would be paid the
Reckoners would leave she and the other hostages would have only to wait for rescue The Ransom an abstraction that seemed to her no more real than numbers on a computer screen would be exchanged for a reality of Manhattan she could visualize turning off hon Street walking
Toward Chelsea in a coat that had come out of her closet for the occasion making her way to axium Coffee to meet one of the young women from her production company she would never leave the Earth again and if Roger was correct about her fandom’s Devotion to her she
Would pay little or nothing of the ransom herself the realization nagged at her a bit a tiny gnawing discomfort beneath the undercurrent of her relief which itself flowed beneath the overcurrent of her dread of these armed people standing over her was she feeling survivor’s guilt that she had paid
Nothing at all for this trip and might pay nothing at all to be ransomed don’t be a boob Cassie survive first she thought then you can feel Survivor guilt and anyway the least wealthy of the other signatories probably Viv Cassie guest would still own orders of magnitude more than her even after
Everything was paid off some of them had lost more money than this in their divorce settlements the mood in the Fortuna Ballroom grew both more subdued and more casual Samir and Nicholas had wrapped their arms around one another’s shoulders Jessica Van Cleave and Sir Alexander conferred in a
Low ferial Spanish or whatever language Jessica spoke three of the housekeepers all of them MBA student interns seemed to be muttering about how their career plans had changed over the last 20 24 hours Tia stared out blankly at the Earth as though at a crushing weight nah surveyed the prisoners with arms crossed
Her pistol in its shoulder holster near her hand and Dion had once again stepped away like a businessman taking a call cupping his hand over his mouthpiece as though he were lighting a cigarette in a phantom wind they sat a couple of hours that way eventually a few of the people
In the circle couldn’t hold it anymore and nah had to escort them one by one to the restroom Cassie wondered how long in a functioning Market it would take a person to sell almost 4 billion worth of stock how would a sale that size move the market itself it occurred to her
That it would cost Roger a lot more than $4 billion worth of assets to come up with $4 billion worth of bitcoin or whatever crypto the reckoners were using on such short notice maybe that was why sir Alexander’s and viv’s interest rates had been so high on Roger’s loans to
Them at last Vali brought Roger back to the ballroom Roger looked like a man who had just won an award for eating an expired sandwich he gave his wife the thumbs up then beckoned her to come with him I’ll take them to change into their flight suits Vitalia announced to Dion
It was obvious to Cassie that Roger had less interest in being liked than most people she had encountered even among the billionaires she had watched practically all the guests give Roger the side eye on an almost daily basis during their week’s training together Jessica on the other hand had seemed fun
Or potentially fun she and Cassie had been paired together in training a few times and she had had a talent for throwing herself gamely into whatever ridiculous position the training might call for like an improv comic or a clumsy cheerleader there was something about her audacity that had made them both
Laugh but the language barrier was a climb for both of them Cassie had thought at first that she’d have a chance to finally improve her Spanish but she had soon realized that it was a long way from Juani Mara van laa to talking about anything real Roger and Jessica returned a few
Minutes later dressed in the garish red of the sis lunar flight suits carrying helmets under their arms the suits seemed less flattering now lumpier around the butt than they had been on the trip up maybe they were wearing astronaut diapers it dawned on Cassie that the two might be in the capsule for
A while bridge this is Ballroom Dion said into his transmitter give us a heads up when the money is in the wallet while they waited Vali followed Samir and Nicholas out to begin the liquidation of $3 billion of their wealth no Doling Dion said in a tone that seemed almost jocular but not
Really Cassie wasn’t sure how much time had passed she wondered if she had drifted off for a minute but then she was startled by hearing Dion acknowledge some message from the bridge the man looked down at Roger and Jessica the money is cleared you’re free to go the
Pair got up to leave Roger offered an awkward wave to the rest of the hostages where is the capsule dropping us the medac will orbit the earth until it can make an insertion for one of its preset Landing areas as long as you don’t mess with the presets you should
Come down within a 100 miles or so of the Florida coast the southern California coast the Bay of bisque there are a dozen pickup points you’ll want to make radio contact with orbital Ventures on your way down so that they can send a rescue remember your training Roger narrowed his eyes as
Though committing Dion’s face to memory he and Jessica walked out before nah into the corridor Cassie wondered whether she would feel the launch of the medac capsule from Imperium would she hear the capsule’s rocket boosters would she just feel a faint vibration through her body as the force of the launch
Propagated through the floor go ahead Bridge Dion was speaking low into his transmitter his voice dropped again and he covered his mouth as he conferred with another of the reckoners the other billionaires awaited the launch with what seemed like a resigned irritation Viv stared out the windows at
A star many light years away Cassie had still felt nothing when nah came back into the ballroom they’re locked in tight I have them on channel one Dion turned a dial on a device strapped to his chest and spoke into his headset come in medac capsule this is
Imperium he paused for the vancleave’s answer then spoke again we will be clearing you for launch momentarily it appears that someone has changed the preset splash down coordinates for the medac capsule as soon as we retriev the original coordinate set ‘ll be good to go it gave Cassie a small perverse joy
To imagine Roger inconvenienced even briefly she searched Dion’s face as he listened hoping to see some intimation of how Roger had reacted to this delay the new coordinates are a long way from anywhere if you are trying to get rescued Dion eventually responded you would splash down in the Pacific near
Villing somewhere a minute later after Fielding whatever whining or abuse was coming back at him over Channel One Dion answered if you don’t care don’t let me stop you but if you want to live I suggest that you wait for us to recover the original coordinate set for the medac Dion
Out bridge this is Ballroom Dion transmitted any word on those presets for the medac Dion’s lips tightened to a thin tense line as he listened to the response from the bridge he stood in silence a minute contemplating then he walked over to stand between Nina and
Vali the three spoke in low voices leave them on the medac for now Cassie heard Dion say they’re more secure there they seemed to confer as though they were planning something they had grown as somber as they had been at the beginning of the oral Vali shook his head as
Though in debate with them doesn’t have that much ammunition Cassie heard him whisper Nina and Vitali each turned to regard Dion again and again as they listened it was as though they could not keep their eyes on the hostages for very long at last Dion took a few steps away
From the circle he turned the dial again on his communicator and began speaking with someone in a voice Cassie could not hear the exchange was tur at least from Dion’s end even without being able to see his eyes Cassie could see Dion growing exasperated with whoever he was
Speaking with his voice took on a peevish Timber she had not heard from him before do you think I enjoy this you can come out anytime this can all be over Cassie realized he was speaking again with Chloe there was another pause as Dion listened then he shot back
Really really okay fine another one goes at the airlock in 20 minutes come out when you’re ready for it to end Dion out with a cool Precision he pressed a button on his wristwatch as though he had never lost his temper before in his life there was another low breaker of
Gasps from among the hostages Cassie felt a rushing in her ears as though a phantom sea were pouring into Imperium in another part of the station she wondered whether she had any chance of being a sacrificial victim more chance than some she supposed she speculated for a moment and her hubbub of racing
Thoughts whether there was some clause in the contract that designated that the victims would come from one of the hostages who had failed to pay some minimum she had listened as carefully as she could when the contract was being read out but contracts being what they are she hadn’t understood every clause
And phrase a memory intruded on her horrible contemplation a college friend of hers after graduating law school last year had once told her with a Tipsy Swagger that there was nothing special to becoming a lawyer except learning to read things carefully perhaps the billionaires had sold out the rest of
Them their secret plan hiding in the plain sight of the text of the contract and she was only now seeing the plot fulfilled this she realized after a minute was crazy talk the billionaires as much as anyone had seemed to regard the contract as concluded business the beginning of
The end of the ordeal and anyway the three terrorists thieves revolutionaries whoever they were had seemed during their conference to be oddly uninterested in the hostages Dion had been tracing lines on his open Palm for Nina and Vitali like a backyard quarterback while they watched with Stern
Gravity at length Nina and Vitali nodded crisply to Dion and walked out of the Fortuna Ballroom Cassie wondered at the differences from the last time Dion had threatened to kill one of them when Eric had been cast out sir Alexander spoke up I thought we’d settled this we’re ready
To pay as though shushing an impertinent student at the final exam Dion slowly lifted a finger to his lips his face remote behind his glasses several of the hostages had begun to cry again low stifled sobs but as the minutes dragged on 5 10 15 an unforeseen sense of
Detachment began to creep into Cassie’s mind she turned over and over the in congruities of what she had seen of course the people with the guns could kill the hostages however they wanted to why would they complicate such a straight forward thing as killing them by leaving the ballroom a boom like an
Infernal Kettle drum resonated ated far off the hostages tensed like startled deer Dion stood poised and distant a flurry of Pops what Cassie knew now to be gunfire followed Dion spoke something into the communicator the only words Cassie could make out were Bridge support Cassie realized then that the
Threat Dion had made over the communicator 15 minutes before had been a ruse nah and Vali had launched some kind of sneak attack on Dr khloee Cassie closed her eyes and waited for the shooting to stop the shooting continued you all are settled with us as soon as
You’ve paid Dion said quietly to the group as if in answer to Sir Alexander’s earlier comment we’re securing the station and then we can all go about getting ourselves back to Earth it occurred to Cassie that he didn’t have to say anything that this was she supposed Dion’s attempt at comforting
Them suddenly an emergency claxon began sounding over the the faint staccato BackBeat of the gunfire its sound was deeper less shrill than the smoke alarm that had gone off earlier like three repeated notes from a fish and discordant trumpet the computerized voice of imperium’s public address system began repeating between the
Blaring of the horn whole breach detected laboratory Wing Dion pulled off his aviators his eyes narrowed as he lifted one hand to his earpiece come again Vali the claxon flooded the space with its harsh broadcast the pops of gunfire continued I’m on my way Dion
Shot them all a stern look I expect you to be sitting right there when I get back then he walked out of the Fortuna ballroom with his key fob he closed the sliding glass doors of the Ballroom in the open Sonic space between blasts of the claxon Cassie heard the door latch
The hostages looked at one another some in horror some in baffled silence and now we have a decompression event Nicholas muttered acidly the warning would be different if it were a decompression event tears are reassured him and there’s no unusual air flow down here whatever whole breach is going on
Must have already been sealed off all they had to do was close a security hatch Cassie felt a surprising nervous energy Rising within her like a long compressed spring releasing energy into her limbs she scanned the blank Ballroom around her could she break down the doors where were the HVAC tucks she
Stood up and began scanning the perimeter of the room sit down Viv said what are you doing indeed what was she doing Cassie didn’t have an answer ready not even for herself some intuition she couldn’t explain told her that the ground underneath their feet had changed the conditions of the contract the
Agreement with Dion and his men these seemed wholly unsupported by whatever shift in the organizational center of gravity was going on right now the contract and Dion’s assurances seemed as empty and irrelevant as the original itinerary for the guest second day on Imperium I want to get a message to the
Police she said though this was not the thought that was driving her everybody earthside already knows we’ve been taken hostage Samir said we’ve been raising Ransom money remember it’s not going to speed up a rescue mission for you to get yourself killed this eminently reasonable advice remained un satisfying to her this
Firefight that she could still hear far off the urgency of the warning claxons had changed her calculus in ways that she could not articulate it seemed like the most breathtakingly foolish course of action imaginable would be to sit and wait for a group of killers to come back
And point guns at them from behind the closed glass doors she peered as far as she could in both directions up the main Corridor the hallway remained cool blue empty still even the stink of the grease fire was diminished now that the doors were sealed the doors were not made of
Ordinary glass and maybe not glass at all in any event she saw no chairs no fire extinguisher nothing in the ballroom massive enough to shatter whatever the material was she counted four HVAC registers or maybe intakes and she pulled on the grill of each while the other hostages squawked at her with
Increasingly loud scandalized voices you’re going to make things worse for all of us Viv said that was when Cassie noticed the housing for one of the holograph projectors in the floor at the base of the sleek black bar she could feel hinges along one end of the floor
Panel there she reached her narrow arm into the hole where the projector lens emerged found a hidden latch the entire floor panel almost a meter Square hinged up to reveal the projector controller and a massive CA snaking back under the floor the entire crawl space could not
Be much more than 40 cm high and she couldn’t see how far back it went but when she craned her head as far as she could down the crawl space she saw or imagined she saw a dim gray light somewhere ahead sir Alexander had approached her as she regarded the
Narrow tunnel in the floor please he implored her you’re going to get us all killed they won’t kill you she said they want your money remember without reflecting further on where it led Cassie slipped on her belly into the crawl space with a Resolute amphibian shimmy if you close the floor panel
Behind me he might not even notice I’m gone Cassie heard the floor panel shut and latch behind her when she had gotten a meter or so into the tunnel dimming the ambient light around her almost to Blackness yet now there was no doubt as she crawled her way over cables and
Splitters and passed a black lightless side tunnel that the gray glow ahead of her was real she crept toward it she had gone 20 M or so straight along the tunnel toward that light before she recognized a ske of cables plugging into the back of another hologram projector a
Projector that pointed out of an identical aperture in the floor into another dimly lit room the floor panel was mounted with an identical latch in an identical spot she pulled it and pushed the panel up on identical hinges she pulled herself out into another room
The space was maybe half the size of the Fortuna Ballroom perhaps could be made to form part of the Fortuna Ballroom if the wall behind her was retractable besides a long table and circled by a swoop of curved chairs on armatures the place was empty there
Was no view of Earth here the only light flooded in from the main Corridor through the glass double doors the claxon still rang out like the deafening Strokes of a mountainous clock the frequency of the snaps of gunfire had diminished she thought but not by much
Like popcorn in its final minute in a microwave Cassie took barely a second to wonder why the Earth’s first orbital Hotel a place with only eight guests and a capacity for no more than 30 would have so many conference rooms if she and any of the orbital Ventures employees
Survived she would ask one of them about it but for now the sound of the gunfire told her in its wordless way to keep moving she tried the doors if they were locked they had not been secured the same way that Dion had locked the doors to to the Fortuna Ballroom Cassie was
Still able to push them open from inside she poked her head out into the corridor the presence of security cameras throughout Imperium one of them scarcely 15 M up the hallway from her had not registered in the inarticulate plan that she had formed whatever fire had tripped
The alarms before was stinking now in the silky blue hallway moving unreflectively by a kind of intestinal intuition Cassie patted up the corridor then ran the location of the firefight was hard to pinpoint but if it was occurring on the Ring of the main Corridor she didn’t
Believe it was occurring near her as she approached the landing of the gamma spoke ladder she heard another thunderous Boom pinpointing for her that the battle was unfolding somewhere at the other end of the ladder somewhere on the Hub yet that was the last noise she heard beyond the whale of the
Claxons she dashed farther up the hall just ahead the doors to the library stood open just as she had first seen them the day before within an abandoned silence hung over the space a leather and walnut simulacrum of an English gentleman’s Library a museum of potted palms and framed iridescent beetles and
Taxidermized songbirds in cases all before what seemed like a Mullan bay window looking out toward the Hub rotating against the Blackness of space and the inconceivably distant Stars the faint acrid stench of the grease fire was almost beneath her awareness here as she paused here an unnerving calm
Descended over the hall the warning claen had ceased at two of the long reading tables which tiza had said during the tour had been purchased from the library of meron College Oxford there was a bank of computers she had given no thought to what call for help she might post to her Instagram
Followers lack of premeditation had never stopped her before however she had made thousands of posts on the Fly walking out of a coffee shop or the gym and saying whatever was on her mind some of her most viral posts had begun that way she woke up one of the machines and
Opened the browser the cute little dinosaur or whatever creature it was appeared on the screen to inform her that she was not connected to the internet Cassie searched out the available networks all three of them Imperium guest Imperium admin Imperium lab were password protected that was new
She remembered how stupid it had seemed to her the day before that the guest SN network was not password protected before she had realized sheepishly that there were no other human beings for miles around to poach internet from a space hotel now she contended with a feeling of even greater foolishness of course
Dion would have passward protected the internet what could have possessed her to risk so much just to post a story Samir had been right her going to Instagram wasn’t going to speed up any rescue operation it occurred to her that this was one of the the rooms where
Vitali might have been bringing the wealthy hostages there was no way to tell the browser history was blank when she checked it but she realized that one of the rooms with internet access was not the best place for her to hide she wished she still had her key fob she
Wished for a dark corner where she could lie low Cassie heard the approach of footsteps out in the corridor chapter 7 20 minutes earlier Khloe wondered at Dion’s voice what he had said and not said before he signed off his voice had sounded angry in a way she had not heard
It before petulant like a teenager sniping hidden in Dion’s basso profundo and now she had 20 minutes to surrender before the second of the hostages was to die if Dion had been hoping to guilt her into taking responsibility for the death of the first hostage whoever that lost
Soul had been he had misread her whatever emotion Dion had been trying to fish out of her compassion codependence was hard for Khloe to call up even in the best of times much less now she wondered who that first hostage had been they had killed one of the males she
Could tell that much from the man’s bellowing in his last seconds but her view of him as he was flushed out of one of the rim airlocks had been from 100 m away all she could say for sure was that he was a male that he hadn’t suffered in
Silence and that he seemed to die quickly she had been a fool to have ever mentioned the Starliner to Dion probably she’d been a fool to have responded to him at all but she had been so angry spiteful even that she had just blurted out the trump card she had been holding
Before it was clear to her how much of a trump card it was what had her spite cost her and how had she harmed Dion if evolutionarily speaking her threat had cost her more than it had cost him was her emotion even spite at all she had
Spent the time between the first host’s death and the threat of the next by fortifying the lab Wing as best she could she had closed and locked the hatches at either end of the lab access Corridor that connected to the axle she had used all her masking tape to obscure
The lenses of each of the lab security cameras she had scoured her lab for anything more she might put to use tweezers a plastic J can of deionized water latex gloves a plastic bin of potting soil a plastic bin of fertilizer if the fertilizer had been ammonium
Nitrate she could have made quite a bomb with it of course she didn’t need quite a bomb she wasn’t trying to kill herself or blow a hole in Imperium but if she could cook up a small explosion perhaps out of something that had been left behind in the Closeouts of lav module 4
In preparation for the return of the Penn State group she might concoct a bit of pyrotechnics to confuse an attack her for a critical moment so she had returned once more to lab module 4 within the materials lockers was a whole chemistry set of acids and solvents and flammables nitric acid acetone methanol
Pentane she took the flask of pentane a plastic ler squeeze bottle the little portable bunson burner that looked like a backpacking stove and like a ghoul she rifled once more through the pockets of Angel’s corpse now that she understood what she was looking for she found his
Key fob sitting right in his Hip Pocket if the woman on the bridge hadn’t thought to deactivate it the fob might still be Co to all the locked hatches on the station Chloe lamented once more the trouble she could have saved herself if she’d simply snapped up the man’s fob
The first time but a person makes a lot of mistakes in a panic the woman on the bridge was making her own mistakes had she been able to keep her head the woman could have closed and locked the hatches to the lab wi during Khloe’s ill- started Venture on the rim Chloe
Wouldn’t have been able to get back in then with angel’s fob on her belt now she might even be able to let herself into a secured room before the bridge figured out what was going on maybe she should try to get aboard the Starliner after all or if she could get into the
Hotel Administration office on the rim she could probably deactivate Dion’s fob or anybody she might even be able to lock the terrorists into one of the rooms on Imperium until rescue arrived as she had mused on these options a realization arrested her if the terrorists had given themselves full
Entry access on their fobs and why wouldn’t they have it did her no good to have locked the hatches in that access Corridor if anything closing those hatches put her in Greater danger and that they sealed her off from the rest of Imperium if they had a mind to Dion’s
Team could open the second airlock and decompress the whole Lab wi she would probably be able to get into her pressure suit in time but no guarantees if the bay doors and inner hatch of the airlock opened quickly enough she might very well lose Consciousness before she
Got the suit on that Revelation had spurred her to pull the pressure suit out of her lab closet and to put it on practically every room on Imperium had a cabinet with a couple of emergency pressure suits hanging in it thick bulky balloon skins that a person
Of nearly any size could Dawn yet the emergency cabinet in Khloe’s own lab contained a suit fitted for her just like the one hanging in her cabin one of the perks of having her own lab she could do yoga in such a suit if she were
The kind of person to practice yoga but even the fitted suit restricted her field of vision a little bound up her movements in ways she couldn’t always predict as she dawned the suit she noticed again her ball cap she must have put it on without thinking when she had
Awakened in the night she let it drift out of her hand and it spun slowly across the lab like a sad frisbee Chloe noticed too that the gauntlets of the pressure suit were not designed for shooting the fingers of the gloves were almost too thick to fit safely through the Glocks trigger guard
The dir of pockets on the pressure suit had bothered her almost as much as the gauntlets had she had spent much of the time between Dion’s threats arranging some provision for her motly gear including the pistol that angel had inexplicably not carried in a holster she had gone through every storage
Cabinet of every lab module most of the stuff sacks had been empty though there was another roll of tape actual duct tape left behind in the webbing of lab module 2 she fashioned a duct tape sheath for her screwdriver and she had gathered two of the stuffed sacks from
Her module one of the these she had taped to her hip with a makeshift belt of duct tape the other she had looped over her shoulder to use as a holster for the fire extinguisher she had taken from the cafeteria then using the blade of the plastic scraper she had scrunched as an
Armature Chloe had wrapped layer after layer of duct tape into a rough envelope that would hold the pistol an hour would have been enough to make it handsome but the 5 minutes she took were enough to create something ugly and functional the rudiments of a holster that covered
The trigger guard she had strapped the crude arrangement to her thigh finally with more duct tape she fashioned her bomb a Rube Goldberg device of a plastic squeeze bottle filled with pentane duct taped to the sliding panel of the hatch to the axis Corridor she lit the bunson
Burner and taped it down to the door jam opposite when the hatch slid open if it opened the bottle would move with the hatch until it was above the burner which would be squeezed against the jam and would hopefully burst adjacent to the burner’s flame and now she had according to
Dion’s pompous whining 20 minutes less than 20 perhaps only 15 she wished it had occurred to her to start a timer when Dion first made his threat she wondered whether she might use her lab laptop to crack the new network password and send a distress call to Earth this
Line of inquiry she knew was just so much spinning of her wheels that she would do well to forget about the prospect she was no hacker and whoever was on the bridge wasn’t about to fall for a spear fishing attack it was then that Khloe heard a noise nearby The
Telltale rushing exhalation of an airlock emptying told her that they must be decompressing the lab wi she dropped into the script of her training she reached reflexively without even waiting for The Rush of air that betokened a decompression to close the visor of her helmet still no rush of air she braced
Herself her mind raced to understand their tactics if they were decompressing the lab wi why had the Bridge opened the airlock bay door to the outside but not the inner hatch leading into the wing if this was a decompression attack they were going about it the dumbest way
Possible an Insight beneath the level of reflection as thoughtless as a diamond back’s warning rattle signaled that she would need her weapon she pulled the Glock from its duct tape Hol she considered for a moment raising the visor of her helmet no time she thought as best she could through her narrowed
Field of vision she took in the main hallway of the lab wi from the hatchway of her lab 3 or 4 M to her left stood the hatch that led to the axis hallway that way led to the axle and the rest of Imperium the two halves of her makeshift
Bomb were duct taped to the hatch and bulkhead like a pair of barnacles directly across from her was the hatchway to lab module 4 Angel floated there like the carcass of a becalmed sea creature to her right on the same side of the hallway as her lab
Stood the hatch that led to lab module 2 and Beyond it to the airock where the Starliner was docked it was from across the hall and to the right beyond the hatch to lab module 3 the old comra Joe lab that Chloe had heard the noise from
The airlock Beyond she had a brief heartbreaking Pang of regret that she had never answered Dion’s bid to parley over Channel 8 now that they knew she was listening in her attackers must have begun communicating over another Channel she scanned about her for a position that might take in both directions at
Once in the same moment that she arrived at the provisional conclusion that there was no such position she saw and heard the hatch of lab module 3 open a hand’s breath watched a cylinder like a black camping lantern sail into the corridor like a clumsily thrown football she knew that OB object
Remembered her father’s showing her when she was 10 years old what a flashbang grenade looked like and what it did with one hand she pulled down the glare visor on her helmet while she pushed off with her legs against the jam of the hatch to put herself behind the bulkhead of her
Laboratory the boom of the flashbang amazed her she didn’t think she was deafened though the grenade must have gone off on the other side of the Bulkhead from her the sound overwhelmed the noise cancellation in her earbuds but the shock wave didn’t buff at her directly and was baffled somewhat by her
Snoopy cap and helmet the flash of light too was not as effectual from the other side of the bulkhead shining into her lab through the half closed hatch through her glare visor she might have been looking at the sunset of a star much dimmer than the sun she pulled
Herself back into a position in the hatchway of her lab when she saw the light change to her left another hatch opening probably the hatch leading from the axle to the lab wi access hallway attackers were approaching her from two directions she heard Dion’s Voice come
Over her earbuds like a tiny tiny insect chirping in a cloud of cotton wool Bridge support the attack on Dr Bonia in the lab wi she may try to come out into the axle she was not deaf after all and Strangers still they must still be using Channel 8 for their
Communications copy that Meredith replied chlo’s bomb did nothing or at least it was reacting too slow SL to achieve her hoped for effect with it they would come in firing she knew she had one last moment of heartbreak that her kakami pyrotechnics had not gone off it had been an experiment worth trying
There is no animal quite so willing to experiment as a cornered mammal then her little bomb made a sound more like the whooshing of a gigantic stately fart than a device designed to intimidate an enemy yet she heard the banging of the plastic flask as it clattered and ricocheted around the
Corridor heard a Yelp of surprise from a man’s blunt voice with her left arm looped through the handhold on her side of the bulkhead Chloe swung around to fire she took in the hallway for a moment Vitali was sailing directly across the hall from her higher and far
To the right of where she’d expected he would be his body rotating slowly he reached out to grasp one of the hand holds next to the hatchway to lab module 4 his jumpsuit scorched along his broad back she swung the Glock up to point at him but before she could squeeze off a
Shot he had pulled himself into lab module 4 across the hall with a single lie sweep of his great arm she saw no defensible position for herself that didn’t involve being cornered in her laboratory without further reflection than that she pushed herself out into the hallway and backed herself up
Against the door jam of her lab as she began firing at the open hatchways of lab modules 3 and four without seeing her targets laying down a cover for herself she heard and saw nothing from the lab modules her attackers were either lying low waiting her out or
Moving in stealth towards some Vantage she could not imagine the instability of her position its metastability a geologist would call it troubled her at her rate of fire she could hold this position for no more than 2 or 3 minutes even if she was able to reload just then
The warning claxons of Imperium began to Bray all around her H breach detected laboratory Wing in toned the solemn matronly voice of the station’s computer she pushed herself from her door jam toward the scorched hatch to the access Hall firing twice wildly to maintain the illusion of cover fire as she spun and
Caught the handle next to the bulkhead she looked out into the access hallway Beyond at the other end of the hallway an athletic hard-faced woman in an orbital venture’s uniform Meredith glided toward the bulkhead like a person diving underwater she held her her pistol in both hands before her like the
Horn of a narwhal Khloe ducked behind the bulkhead as two three four bullets slammed against the reinforced steel that separated her from Meredith perhaps she had panicked to see Chloe while floating along the length of the corridor in her unanchored critically vulnerable state whatever Meredith’s reason for firing she had done one of
The more foolish things she could have done at that moment when she had pulled the trigger her pistol and she connected to it had to obey Newton’s Laws of Motion just as scrupulously as any other object in the cosmos the weapon Kickback worked like a retro Thruster slowing down Meredith’s approach to her
Destination to the gentle drift of a duck sitting in the middle of a pond holding the handle of the bulkhead to brace herself Khloe fired at her Meredith was 5 m away when the bullet struck her in the center of her forehead Khloe looked behind herself once more
Shut four more times with her her back braced against the bulkhead toward the empty hatchways to lab modules 3 and four then she swung past the hatchway to the axis coridor and launched herself down its length as she passed she reached out for the pistol of the dead
Woman with her left hand but Chloe had not launched herself on a collision course with Meredith’s corpse rather she had pushed off as quickly as she could on as clear a flight path as she could looking behind her only as an afterthought as she was passing by did
She grasp at Meredith’s we weapon but it was just out of Khloe’s reach and the two women the quick and the dead sailed past one another like boats on a swell while she floated down the length of the hallway she pointed her weapons below her between her feet and fired
Three more times toward the bulkhead she had launched from her pistol had to obey the same Newtonian laws that had undone Meredith now in use to boost Khloe’s speed a bit down the hallway she wondered how many bullets had punctured the hole of Imperium perhaps just one if
She was lucky she passed out of the axis hallway and crashed softly into the curved wall of the axle she expected at any moment to look back and see another attacker swing a weapon around the opening to the axis hallway that she had just left she stole a glance ahead of
Her the axle was flocked with ragged scraps of cloud from the fire extinguisher she had used hours ago now congregating at the air vents like froth around a storm drain but the place was clear of people as far as the access hallways for the bridge and the levitas
Reception hall at the other end more quickly than she was able to comment on it Chloe considered the data that was available to her based on what she had been able to tell from the chatter on Channel 8 there had been only one person on the bridge after she had hidden
Herself in the cabinet of lab module 4 Meredith the woman with the midwestern accent floating in the access Corridor with a bullet in her brain it was time to take a blind risk of her own she hauled on the handhold to launch herself up all 30 m of the axle as she trained
The pistol between her feet looking back every other second in expectation that one of the attackers would emerge to begin firing on her she wondered how many bullets were left in the magazine not many she knew probably fewer than 10 she shot once at the open doorway behind
Her then shot once more to cover herself she didn’t like that she could be Perforating the hole of Imperium like a watering can the claxon blared the same whether she had punctured the hole once or 10 times her father a traditionalist on the subject of ballistics would have told
Her that even a 9mm weapon like the Glock was too heavy-handed for combat in an environment like Imperium where a stray shot even with a hollow point bullet might clip through the hole like a hole punch to say nothing of the difficulty of maintaining a stable position while firing in zero gravity a
Smaller caliber weapon like a 32 would have made a great deal more sense especially on the Hub Chloe had noted in passing Meredith’s corpse that Meredith had carried something that looked like a 32 then Chloe remembered her other gear from her shoulder stuff sack she Drew out the fire extinguisher again she
Pointed the nozzle behind her and sprayed a great lumpy cone of foam spread out beneath her feet it did not look so different she thought as she sped up from the burgeoning mushroom of exhaust that came out of the tail of a launching rocket 2 seconds later she
Glided past The Landings of beta and gamma Spokes and the door to the alas spoke elevator in fact she was speeding faster than she liked toward the far end of the axle in the final few meters of her flight she tucked her body and turned to face the wall she approached
She shot the extinguisher ahead of her as a break she realized she had misjudged the physics of the approach just as she slammed into the other end of the corridor she heard a sick ing crunch felt a sharp pain along the crown of her head yet she realized almost
Immediately that she was not dazed the crushing sound she had heard must have been the headlamp in her helmet impacting against the wall a constellation of plastic shards formed a nimbus around her head two hallways opened on either side at this end one to the levitas reception hall one to the
Bridge Chloe looked behind her one last time down the length of the axle she saw the moment that vali’s head and arm popped out into the axle to fire on her she sprayed the extinguisher to her side to launch herself up the excess hallway to the bridge she took a parting shot
Down the axle at Vitali as she disappeared from his view she realized as she sailed up the access Corridor toward the bridge that Vali had missed her she had almost certainly missed him as well neither of them had had much of a moment in which to aim the bridge
Hatch was closed and she stopped hard against it Meredith down she heard nah saying over her earbuds chlo’s headed for the bridge that’s Checkmate for her Dion responded he sounded neither particularly happy nor triumphant she’s locked out take up positions in The Landings for beta and
Gamma spoke where you have view of the bridge access Corridor I’m coming up Alpha we’ll smoke her out she looked through the port hole wondering whether Dion or one of his people could shoot her through the glass perhaps but the glass was very thick she suspected a hollow point wouldn’t penetrate easily
Assuming that all the terrorists were shooting dumb Dums to minimize overpenetration into the hole of Imperium of course a hollow point could Pierce a great deal of material if you got lucky or unlucky a hollow point could punch through the hole the emergency claxon still wailed as though
To scold Khloe for having fired so many rounds the bridge looked empty within the hatch was locked as she pulled up Angel’s key fob from the string hanging from her impromptu duct tape belt she hoped that the key was in fact coded for universal access the hatch slid open for
Angel’s fob she pulled herself in closed the door behind her and locked it down manually she stared in horror at the banks of controls the keypads and monitors and displays that she had seen many times before but never personally needed she could see the security camera views running in six small slideshows
Over one one monitor some slides were black when they came up the cameras she had disabled she presumed but after a few seconds a feed of one of the cameras on the axle appeared in one quarter of the screen she tapped the view of that feed and from the menu that popped up
She pinned that view to the screen she could see Vitali and nah pulling themselves along the axle by handholds floating into the openings to the beta elevator and the gamma ladder like ghosts dropping into two Wells ify T had been harmed by Khloe’s little bomb he
Didn’t look it Nino was dressed in a pressure suit the visor of her helmet up another stun grenade was clipped with a carabiner to a utility belt she wore outside her suit Chloe struggled to collect her thoughts under the blaring importunity of the warning claxon she tried the keyboard of the main terminal
Tried the mouse pad on the central monitor were crowded dozens of menus for displays and command prompts she hunted through them for some kind of communication Channel radio an internet browser Skype there were station schematics she could pull up displays for life support status reports on the airlocks interfaces on electricity
Supply and usage a log of the usage of each key fob and the door access for each user a red warning Banner flashed across the top of each of the monitors on the bridge Hull breach lab wi atmospheric pressure dropping at 73.4 kPa per minute she found a dedicated radio on the
Control panel as well as a browser on the computer but her attention was arrested when she saw the icon for the key access program on the menu she was looking at she pulled the application open a San of submenus presented itself out of the net she picked the one marked
Current location a two-dimensional map of the Hub shaped like a barbell appeared on the left side of the screen The Ring Of The Rim appeared on the right the two maps were Ed by three schematic dotted lines to represent the spokes marked Alpha Beta gamma each map was clustered with location pins she
Hovered the mouse pointer over each of the five pins in the map of the Hub the pin labeled Angel was on the bridge the pin marking Meredith still took up the center of the axis hallway to the lab wi the pins for Dion Nina and Vali congregated at the midpoint of the axle
Chloe checked the security camera monitor the doors of the alpha spoke elevator were half open Dion’s Head and Shoulders visible above the aperture as though he were looking out from the turret of a tank on the map of the rim Chloe saw a Congregation of pins in one
Of the state rooms each pin labeled with the name of a guest or an employee Chloe wondered how so many hostages could be crammed into a single state room before it dawned on her that the hostage takers had probably removed everyone’s key fobs and stowed them somewhere inaccessible
To them she would have to search for the hostages on the security cameras the game’s over Chloe Dion’s voice came over Channel 8 calm and solemn even compassionate it seemed to her she didn’t answer she floated over once more to peek out of the port hole of the
Bulkhead into the axis hallway as though she had heard him call to her from just outside the door throw your weapons out into the axle where we can see them we won’t harm you she wanded for a stray moment whether the imitation of compassion was an Adaptive evolutionary strategy for certain species if
Compassion was adaptive for Homo sapiens might the faking of compassion be adaptive for some humans she supposed the issue revolved around the question of whether group level selection operated as a force in evolution or not she remembered the dictum of the two Wilsons selfishness beats altruism within groups altruistic groups beat
Selfish groups everything else is common AR she might devote the rest of her life to studying the accuracy or inaccuracy of that proposition if she survived of course Chloe the station is losing oxygen neither of us wants these hostages to die I give you my word that
Nobody including you will be hurt if you come out if she had known how to do it Chloe would have opened the Bay of the Lev’s reception hall airock in that moment flushed Dion and Vitali and Nina out of the axle into space she would have tried
To anyway but she had barely trained on the airlock control program she had certainly never used it before it was one of those applications that had sat on her laptop before the Takeover before Meredith had changed all the access passwords to the network but even back when she could have opened the program
On her laptop she had entrusted the workings of that program to the folks on the bridge hoping that she would never find herself having to open and close hatches remotely in emergency Chloe our time is shorter than you think Dion said over the communicators his voice reminded her of
A concerned therapists we need to deal with the whole breach we’ll be forced to disable you if you don’t throw down your weapon now like a frantic magician rifling through a deck of cards for the right one Chloe kept swiping the mouse through the menus and submenus of the key access
Application the silence that followed Dion’s offer seemed to fray in Her Imagination this didn’t have to end so badly Chloe he said after a silent minute I’m sorry we couldn’t come to some agreement at last she found what she had hoped to find a submenu titled
Permissions a list of the 21 active key fobs on Imperium appeared on the screen next to each one was a drop- down menu with a user security designation as well as another drop down that she presumed identified which rooms the user could open with with their fob her eye ran
Down the list past her own name past names of the Dead to Dion Stubblefield his designation was crew all access she opened the drop- down menu there were several designations on the list crew researcher Hospitality staff guest VIP guest and at the bottom of the menu in red there was a final
Designation perhaps intended for belligerent drunks or guests in a mental health crisis a designation that caused her to smile for the first time in some hours security risk access rescinded Chloe gave Dion stubblefield’s key fob its new designation Chloe heard in that moment even over the droning of the
Claxon a dull shocking thud outside the bridge bulkhead a flash of light poured through the port hole one of them had thrown another stun Grenade on the security monitor of the axle she could see Dion and Nina covering Vitali as he glided forward with his weapon been
Drawn it took Chloe only seconds to find the access designations for Vitali poloff and nah Jones she changed their designations as well security risk access rescinded as she turned to face the hatch that separated her from Vitali she caught one more Glimpse on the security monitor of the big man swinging his body
Around the corner of the axle on a handhold to point his weapon into the empty access Corridor she positioned herself next to the hatch and a couple of meters away against the bulkhead and out of view of the port hole she braced herself she hoped she had been right
About the port hole glass being bulletproof she hoped she had altered her enemy key permissions correctly she hoped they weren’t carrying other kinds of grenades besides flashbangs she heard nothing but the Wailing of the claxon from where she hid Khloe craned her neck around to peek at the security monitor
On the console Dion was approaching the axis Corridor as well Vali was scanning about him as though expecting Chloe to pop out from some non-existent hiding place in the access Corridor as though he was unable even to contemplate the most parsimonious explanation that she had gotten herself onto the bridge with
Angel’s key fob in the pauses between the bleedings of the emergency claxon she could hear them conferring in low voices on the other side of the hatch one of the two men uttered a low curse about his now useless key fob Khloe crouched with her weapon trained on the door
Nothing At Last Chloe ventured to take her eyes off the port hole long enough to glance back the security monitor Dion Vitali and nah had returned to the axle they were moving quickly now Vitali was hauling himself down the length of the axle toward the lab wi Dion dropped into
Gamma spoke only Nina remained directly beneath a security camera at the end of the axle turned toward the access hallway to the bridge braced to fire on Chloe if she opened the hatch she had bought herself a few minutes Chloe hoped she returned to the bridge console began
Clicking through security feeds to find the cameras trained on her attackers she was reminded immediately of having disabled the lab wi cameras which brought up in her a weird Grim empathy for Meredith and how frustrated she must have been not to be able to see Chloe
Hold up in the lab wi the gamma spoke camera showed Dion descending toward the rim of Imperium floating like a vampire down from the rafters with a baleful Serenity Chloe began a furious search through the apps and menus for the controls to the airlocks and hatches if
She found them quickly enough she might be able to flush Vitali out of the station through the lab module 3 airlock seal off the lab wi to isolate the whole breach or she could try to flush Nina out through the levit reception hall airlock or she might shut Vitali in
Between two locked hatches now that they had no key access if she ejected him eight months of her research her Intrepid little bean sprouts growing in the brick X would also be lost in a vacuum but her research was likely to be lost anyway if she needed to seal off
The lab wi to contain the whole breach she clicked on an icon she didn’t recognize one that had never appeared on her laptop when it was connected to the network crypsis it was called some kind of messaging or conferencing app the call log showed just one call from only
A few minutes ago with a single contact the username zadok appeared beneath the thumbnail Avatar of what seemed a pale and impassive clay mask just then the warning clocks and stopped ringing hbid isolated in toned the computerized voice over the PA though the red warning Banner continued flashing across one of
The monitors Chloe saw on the security monitor that Vitali had closed the hatch to the lab wi access hallway behind him goodbye Little Sprouts she thought she managed to find the airlock control program in a forest of tiles on the screen when she opened the application another station schematic came up a
Dizzying carnival in miniature flashing yellow arrows red X’s sections in green sections in a kind of undulating orange opening an airlock from the bridge was not so simple she saw immediately as changing a crew member’s key access she began hunting through the help documentation for a tutorial on opening airlocks remotely
A vague dread began to gnaw at her as she studied she took a moment to try to pin down Dion’s and vitali’s locations the key access schematic placed Vitali in the blacked out lab wi she found Dion walking at a clip along the main Corridor of the rim at the door of one
Of the crew cabins his own Khloe suspected from her unfamiliar overhead Vantage of the security camera he stopped unlike the security hatches those thick reinforced sliding doors that could be sealed to to contain a hole breach the cabin and stateroom doors were little more than upholstered privacy screens programmed to whisk open
At the presentation of the user’s key fob as though in some kind of trekky Cosplay Dion stepped back a pace and with a distillation of violence tensing through his whole form kicked at the leftmost edge of the door the camera feed showed Dion attempting to pry back
The door panel the Dora resisted after several moments of ineffectual tugging Dion’s shoulder ERS slumped with a hanged dog resignation that for the first time in their acquaintance gave Chloe the impression of a man treated harshly by Fortune but the man stepped back took a long breath like one in
Meditation then aimed and kicked the door twice more the third kick seemed to have deformed the door or the frame or both enough that he was able to gain purchase on the door’s edge with his fingers with a fluid almost btic motion he peeled back the door panel as though
It were the lid of a man-sized Sant Dean can he climbed into his cabin a few moments later he pushed a large heavy duffel through the awkward hole into the corridor then slipped out again himself watching Dion striding down the corridor again pistol in one hand and the massive
Duffel in the other Chloe understood that whatever he and Vitali were doing would come back to haunt her if Dion returned with something other than flashbangs C4 explosive perhaps or even a rifle of large enough caliber they would be able to punch through the bridge security hatch she had to get a
Message out she picked up the radio transmitter sent out on the emergency Channel Imperium to orbital Adventures Operation Center come in operation Center she waited a second 3 seconds five for a response she wondered what time it was in California right now the grally voice of a young man finally came
Back to her this is op Center Imperium what is your status this is Khloe Bonia I’m part of the research crew the station has been taken over by Commander Dion Stubblefield I think most of the guests and employees have been taken hostage we have fatalities we need rescue we’re aware of the hostage
Situation Dr Bia we’re assembling a rescue mission right now we on the station are you Chloe wondered how much information the Operation Center had wondered how they had come by it since Dion had taken hostages he had probably made some kind of demand I’m locked on
The bridge I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay hold up in here what’s the ETA on Rescue there was a deflating pause we about 3 hours from launch Khloe knew then that a hostage taking was not the kind of eventuality for which the orbital Ventures Corporation had planned
Even if the company did have a contingency plan for such a disaster Dion must have timed the Takeover for an hour that was as far from an orbital Ventures launch window as possible she wondered how long he and the other others had been preparing I’m dead anyway she thought 3 hours until the
Launch another God knew how long for a rescue ship to dock with the station it took hours to line the moving bodies up favorably she could be dead for a long time then by the time a rescue mission boarded if they even had a protocol for a hostile
Boarding Dr Bonia are you hidden as the young man asked her this over the radio Chloe could see Vitali on the security monitor floating back out in to the axle hidden on the bridge no I’m not hidden on the bridge stand by op Center I’ll contact you again if I can Bonia
Out she switched the radio off Vali glided up the axle to Nina’s position they exchanged a few words in low voices Chloe couldn’t hear them through the hatch of the bridge then Vitali turned and pushed off toward gamma spoke which he entered Chief this is Vitali Chloe
Heard over Channel 8 I’m coming down to report Chloe had to do something had to get herself off the bridge and into hiding if Dion returned to the bridge hatch with his mysterious cargo she would regret having HED up here yet nahk presence on the security Monitor and her
Unseen presence behind the hatch pinning Khloe down stopped with a shudder every idea that shot across Khloe’s brain Khloe imagined opening the hatch a few centimeters using the narrow opening as a murder hole but Nina would be a lot harder to kill than Meredith had been Meredith had been sailing unanchored up
The middle of a corridor while the security monitor showed nah holding fast to one of the teardrop shaped handholds on the other side of the axis Corridor bulkhead Nino would be able to Shield herself behind that bulkhead almost as well as Chloe could hide behind the bridge hatch nearly frantic Chloe
Returned to the airlock control program if she could find some way in the airlock controls to seal off the Hub of Imperium from the rim and if she could get both the exterior hatch and the bay door open in the levitas reception hall she might be able to blow nah out into
Space as well as keep Dion and Vitali locked out down on the rim two big ifs nah was gripping a handhold she wouldn’t just be swept away even if the depressurization surprised her but Chloe also realized that a depressurization of the Hub would force Dion and Vitali to
Suit up if they wanted to come after her flushing out the air would pose a minor inconvenience for them in the long run but it might by her a few more minutes and she also realized nah would need a moment to prepare for a depressurization nah had succumbed to
The same Temptation nearly everyone did when confronted with the restricted field of vision presented by the helmets she had opened her visor once she had reboarded the station with one hand she could close the visor again and seal her helmet quickly enough but n would only
Be able to do that by either holstering her gun or letting go of the handhold if chlo paid attention she would have a critical second to act Chloe reviewed the help documentation on the airlock control program the command for sealing a hatch was more straightforward or at least it seemed more straightforward
Than she had first thought the command sequence for opening a hatch was somewhat more elaborate an incantatory ritual of pop-up warnings and confirmations but the series of choices was not she hoped Beyond her she was hesitant to begin punching buttons in hopes of summoning the exact sequence of
Hatch closures and openings if she left open a hatch that had to be closed she could kill off all the hostages yet Khloe knew that if she was the only armed hostage on Imperium and she almost certainly was there was some risk to be taken if the rest were to come out alive
She studied the station schematic that showed the bulkheads and sliding hatches of Imperium every segment of the station that might be sealed or unsealed her task reminded her of an old sliding tile puzzle seal off the Hub at the Spokes open the bay doors to the levit reception hall then the Hall’s interior
Hatch open the hatch to the bridge if she was lucky shoot nah while she was still trying to seal her helmet find the darkest corner of Imperium to hide in Chloe began her order of operations she disconnected two of the three keyboard interfaces on the bridge she slid these
Into the awkward stuff sack at her hip she exposed the connector of the last keyboard the one she was still using so that she could remove it quickly when she punched in the last command there were two sliding hatches at either end of each spoke those at the ends of the
Elevator spokes were closed but the hatches at the ends of the gamma spoke ladder were open she took a deep breath and keyed the First Command she wondered whether Nino was able to hear the hatch at the bottom of gamma spoke slide closed she keyed the follow on commands
The bay doors of the levitas reception hall began to open when she keyed in the final commands on the hatch management utility the warning message about an impending decompression flashed on the screen Chloe hoped she had managed to override the station’s programming regarding the warning claxon then with a
Final keystroke she indicated that yes she did intend to open the interior hatch of the levitas reception hall just as Nina’s voice broke in tense and Urgent over Channel 8 I think she’s decompressing The Hub Chief the old familiar claxon thankfully remained silent things moved quickly then Chloe
Caught one last glimpse of nah on the security monitor whether she had failed to grasp the handhold tightly enough or had taken too long to seal the visor of her helmet the torrent of air pushing by her had swept nah toward the levitas reception hall Chloe shut down all
Security camera feeds from the monitoring program then she yanked the last keyboard away from its connector she leaped over to the security hatch that separated her from Nina Chloe punched the hatch open Button with the end of the keyboard in her left hand raised her weapon at nah as the hatch
Slid open a burst of wind less powerful now pushed Chloe from behind against the jam of the bulkhead as the air cleared out of the bridge toward the levit to’s reception hall but Nina was not where Khloe had expected her to be the decompression had pushed nah almost
Entirely out of her sight Khloe could see only a single glove gripping at the lip of the hatch that separated the axis corridor from the levit to’s reception hall Beyond Chloe could see the bay doors gaping on the great zero of space Khloe aimed at the one part of Nina she
Could see the glove whose grip on the edge of the hatch prevented her from being blown out into space but then Khloe’s mind swerved something about firing on that lone hand that solitary grip connecting nah to the world of humans called up for a single moment a strange and
Unaccountable compassion in Khloe then before Khloe could remember herself and shoot Nina’s hand released its grip and disappeared behind the bulkhead Chloe noticed that the wind of a few seconds before had faded to a thready nothing the mest suggestion of a breeze she felt again her exposure her nearness to death
Come flooding back to settle around her she had to move she pushed herself from the open Bridge hatch toward the axle her gun trained on the open hatchway to the levito reception hall she launched herself up the axle looking behind her weapon trained on where Nina might
Return if Chloe was going to hide herself she’d be better off on the rim now that she had disabled the security cameras on the bridge she didn’t like the prospect of using any of the spokes however Dion and Vitali had taken the gamma spoke ladder and might try to
Return that way yet she wasn’t about to wait around in the AEL for an elevator to arrive she dropped into the gamma spoke shaft closed the hatch behind her manually there was no chatter from Nina on the communicator as Chloe descended the ladder hauling on the rungs to speed
Her almost as quickly as when she had fled down the same spoke hours before would nah have cried out to Dion if she had been ejected from the station Chloe slowed herself on the rungs of the ladder until she could climb the last few rungs to the security hatch at the
Bottom of the spoke now that she had weight leaning over on the ladder to open the hatch was a good deal harder she had to turn herself almost upside down on the ladder to turn the hand crank just as the door spiraled open on its interior Springs and a gust of air
Buffeted her as the air pressure of the rim rushed to fill the vacuum of the spoke she heard nah at last on Channel 8 I’ve got the Hub sealed off Chief the bridge is open kloe’s escaped there was a long silence which Khloe abstained from interpreting Roger that Dion
Finally returned retake the bridge and wait for my orders Khloe scrambled down the last few rungs of the ladder reclosed the security hatch and dropped to the corridor she carried so much now fire extinguisher pistol spare mag magazine three computer keyboards screwdriver permanent marker all that duct tape not to mention the pressure
Suit she wore that a jolt of pain shot through her ankles and knees when she dropped to the floor of the main room Corridor she berated herself silently for risking a twisted ankle in the simplest and safest moment of her Escape but her joints did not Rebel any further
And she made for her destination she lifted her visor again pulled out her weapon she could make out a strange tapping close by like the knocking of old Plumbing maybe one of the ventilators had been damaged by the pressure changes and all the openings en closings of Hatches the nearest room
With a reinforced hatch was the hotel Administration office about 50 m up the corridor she regretted not having had a little more time with the security monitors on the bridge to sus out where the hostages were being kept if they were being kept in the Fortuna Ballroom
That was close by barely out of her way as she headed for the hotel admin office but there was no time for that now she wasn’t sure which direction Dion would be coming from up the corridor and she wanted to be well hidden in the admin
Office if he passed this way she heard Dion again over Channel 8 give us a visual on her location we don’t want her hitting Us in the legs before we can even see her she could hear that she was passing close by the source of the
Tapping it seemed to be coming from the medac capsule airlock a tense almost regular metallic clacking as though someone were trapping a nickel on her window to draw her attention she could still take the medac she wasn’t under video surveillance now no one would know until she was gone but once again she
Decided that she would not take the medac she did not in that moment reflect on her decision the unconscious tallying up of reasons not to flee that she was one armed person who knew the station standing between killers and helpless people the corridor remained clear as she padded past the airlock staff cabins
Another use conference room the security cameras glared blindly at her uh Chief we’ve got a situation on the bridge Nina was saying over the communicators as she passed the entryway of the library Chloe heard a movement that made her turn and ready her weapon the room was still and empty from the
Corridor she could see the lit cases the gorgeous long study tables the laptops and chairs but she had not imagined the sound her pistol out in front of her she crouched to look under the study table nearest the entryway someone was crouched there silent as a rabbit or a
Leopard a small voice whispered from beneath the table please don’t kill me chapter 8 10 minutes earlier Dion was grateful at least that Roger Van Cleave had stopped hailing him over the communicators Roger pleas for assistance first affronted then cajoling finally pathetic atic had distracted Dion during moments when his attention was needed
Elsewhere it was a relief at last to hear nothing no CLA no whining of all the unproductive emotions Dion understood despair to be the most Troublesome it was a more tenacious passion even than anger and fear those two instincts that he had spent a whole life weeding out of his character
Despair though was a feeling that committed a man to more stupidities than anger and fear put together as Augustine had said somewhere despair was the only unforgivable sin when he had found the reckoners locked out of the bridge his team’s key fobs deactivated another team member dead Dion had contended for a few
Moments with the same kind of Despair that a chess player confronts when surprised by the loss of a rook in silence he had had to remind himself as he floated outside the bridge hatch with Nina and Vali that many games of Chess are won by players who are down a rook
Not with standing that God generally favors the player with more Rooks most frustrating of all was that this endless wrangling with Chloe had been so unnecessary to begin with he had not lied to her at least not about what he would do if she surrendered he had had
No intention of killing her if she had laid down her weapons even now he wouldn’t harm a hair on her head if she would simply let the reckoners finish their business but there was no sense he knew in wishing for What Might Have Been time to pick Pi himself up and regroup
He had been so concerned about the Starliner before when Chloe was holed up in the lab wing and could get to the shuttle more easily than they could intentionally or not she had drawn the reckoners out into a more vulnerable position with her Antics and now Chloe
Could get into a lot more Mischief on the bridge than she could have done before even in the lawing even if Nina kept her pin down there she could could what Dion wondered would the launch window for a rest come any more quickly with Chloe on the bridge was she likely
To decompress the whole station when there were hostages aboard did it matter that she had revoked their key access most doors on the rim could be forced open with a pry bar and they had more than enough explosives to break open the security hatches separating the reckoners from the Starliner their goals
Would be more difficult to accomplish after the loss of Meredith and the bridge but hardly impossible he supposed that if she wanted to Chloe could shut down the internet router to the rim from where she was that would stop the transfer of wealth alas but Dion did his best to
Take the perspective of his opponent to imagine her fears and desires given the bind she was in the danger she perceived fairily or not was it likely to occur to her how much the reckoners needed the internet right now at any rate supposing for the sake of argument that she did
Have such an Insight how would her shutting down the router affect their operation now they had already collected nearly half of The Ransom a reasonable success for the reckoner first mission Dion slowed down his Pace a moment as he stroe down the central Corridor of the rim with his duffel they
Had committed a few unforced errors having to react to Khloe’s Mischief he could spare a minute now to weigh their options for one they could go forward with a frontal assault on the bridge they had brought the C4 charges aboard for that very purpose in the event that
Things did not go according to plan the breaking open of a reinforced hatch much could go wrong with C4 up here though an explosion of that magnitude would certainly risk another hole breach perhaps one far worse than a stray pistol round punching through the walls of the station then there was possible
Damage to the Bridge’s command and data handling system which could tip over into any number of other system failures on Imperium and not least Chloe had proved herself an uncommonly persistent fighter best to assume now that she would not go down right away any or all
Of the reckoners might be shot in a firefight even if they managed to take her out alternatively they could ignore her while he and Vitali kept moving the hostages through their fire sale of stocks to raise their ransoms he could leave nah posted where she was babysitting the bridge hatch keeping
Chloe in timeout Khloe might if it occurred to her try to flush out the Hub through through the levah bay door and expel Nina but Nina was suited up and knew what to do in a decompression event Dion had pulled the duffel from his cabin in anticipation of the frontal
Assault he had been angry he realized now he felt a boyish Chagrin for having torn the door of his cabin off its track like a drunken lout but now as he weighed the recker’s options as he walked along the endless wheel of the rim the attractions of the alternative
Strategy became more and more apparent their goals after all were not to neutralize Khloe ignoring Khloe kept the reckoner focus where it belonged kept their eyes on the prize Vali dropped out of the gamma spoke ladder a little way ahead of him in the corridor what’s the status on the whole
Breach Dion asked Vali made the okay sign at least that was what it seemed to Dion at first until he realized that Vitali was estimating for him the size of the hole in the hole a breach about the size of a time a lot of trouble over
That little hole he said if we had any duct tape we could tape a patch over it for now I’ve just sealed the hatch to the lab wi then as if as an afterthought Angel and Meredith don’t look so good in there dead very dead I think we should reassess our next step
Dion began the duff seemed suddenly heavy to him now his bag of tricks stuffed with C4 charges C cables and detonators the charger for the active denial device the 50 caliber rifle and ammunition if things really spun out of control and they had to repel the approach of a rescue craft more
Flashbangs screwdrivers hex keys and a prybar for Closeouts and cabinets a medical kit and yes duct tape he would suggest the duct tape in a minute Vali set his jaw in that way he did when he disliked an idea in that moment they heard the emergency P of gamma spoke
Slam shut just above their heads the two men looked quizzically at one another for a moment is she initiating a decompression maybe Dion answered he pulled up the mic of his headset to give the warning just as nah broke radio silence on Channel 8 I think she’s
Decompressing The Hub Chief is your suit sealed no answer came back Dion and Vitali stared at one another in growing alarm the operation was challenging but possible with a team of three so long as they could keep Khloe pinned down but if they lost Nina and if Khloe somehow
Survived the job would be nigh impossible with a team of two we may need to make for the Starliner Dion muttered he began to consider the emergency pressure suits hanging in the rooms around them given their bulk and awkwardness it was almost certainly worth the delay to head back up the
Corridor to the crew cabins for their fitted suits let’s get suited up he told Vitali Vitali raised an eyebrow that’s it we’re heading for the Starliner what about Nina Dion didn’t like vali’s tone still his remark was not openly disdainful not enough to Merit a response at this
Moment there are a lot of reasons we may need to make for the Hub on short notice and if Chloe opened one of the bay doors the station will take hours to repressurize after we get it closed again Nina can rendevu with us at the Starliner he did not add what Vitali
Surely knew already Nina could rendevu with them if she managed not to get sucked out of the station Vitali also knew surely that of all the things that had gone wrong so far much more could go wrong wearing but not needing the pressure suits would be infinitely better than needing but not wearing
Them we’re going to frighten the hostages if they see us Bali said as they made for the crew cabins they’re sufficiently frightened already I doubt the suits will add or detract much as they turned back toward the staff cabin section Dion became aware of a faint
Sound up the corridor almost at the edge of his hearing a strange irregular tapping that he realized must have been going on for some time its tone of insistence needled him the sound was like the clicking of a poorly mounted ventilation fan except that the rhythm of its distant clacking was not so
Predictable like someone using a tiny door knocker on a stout eternally locked door it took him a minute to understand what he was hearing the clacking was exactly what it would sound like if someone was banging an object a safety belt buckle for example against the hatch of the medac capsule to be
Propagated through the walls of the airlock to diffuse into the corridor as a weak far off tapping Bali was giving him a quizzical look in the hallway it’s the van Cleaves on the medac capsule Dion said Vali let off a snort I suppose they are getting tired of waiting should
We pull them off unfortunately for the van Cleaves Dion knew that the correct answer was no cooling their heels aboard the Medevac even while they were still docked to the station Roger and Jessica were safer than anyone else on Imperium and anyway how was anyone going to recover the original splash down presets
For the Medevac right now if Roger and Jessica were foolish enough to launch themselves before the medac navigation computer was restored to its original presets they hadn’t an excellent chance of drowning somewhere off vills when the capsule eventually inevitably sank the orbital Ventures retrieval teams wouldn’t even know the capsule had
Launched the van Cleaves were better off waiting where they were their tapping haunted him though like the beatings of the Hideous Heart under Po’s floorboards Dion felt a furious undercurrent urge to hit the emergency launch button himself from the infirmary airlock to send away that shameful clacking reminder of how
The reckoners plans were coming apart at the seams shame though was another unproductive emotion there was no more foolish reason on Earth to kill someone hadn’t he already decided he wouldn’t be killing anybody else just to make a point or to avoid backing down on a
Threat he intended to keep his word if he could to the van Cleaves they had paid up and would go home first and if he couldn’t keep his word he would have to contend with that dishonor himself negative Dion replied they’re safer where they are let’s suit up the two
Double timed up the hallway to the door of vitali’s cabin Vitali leted out another faint ironic snort at the sight of the next cabin up the hall from his the door of which had Dr Khloe Bonia PRI on the name plate it’s a Pity Vitali muttered nodding at Khloe’s door she
Shouldn’t line up to fight for those billionaires just because of her boyfriend for a moment de envied vitali’s ability to divide the world into revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries reckoners and propertarian it had never before occurred to Dion to speculate about what Khloe’s politics were Dion handed the
Pry bar to Vitali who wrenched open his door panel with a quick broad-shouldered ferocity Dion prepared to wriggle through the gash in the doorway of his own cabin Three Doors Down adjacent to the cabin of Conrad Whitaker his dead colleague Dion was not in a position to waste precious attention on the
Reappearance of Conrad’s name in his field of vision now someday he would reflect on that name again he hoped the reckoner work was a tangled knot of means and ends that he would one day if he was lucky have the Leisure to untie as he stooped to pass through into his
Cabin Dion felt a fastidious awareness of the main Corridor security camera that looked down on their cabin doors perhaps Chloe was watching him even now from the bridge he thought for a moment about shooting out the camera the way Khloe had done with one of the other
Cameras in the corridor but he could not see how the benefits Justified the risks the possibility of another hole breach the noise and the dead camera feed giving away their position just as surely as if the camera were watching them perhaps Chloe had panicked when she shot out the camera near the cafeteria
Back in his cabin Dion took his pressure suit from the closet and began to shimmy into the thick fitted fabric just then Nina’s voice broke in again over the communicators I’ve got the Hub seal doph Chief the bridge is open chlo’s escaped Dion’s relief at not having lost Nina
Balanced in a kind of cosmic symmetry with his frustration that Khloe was lost to him again for all he knew she could be coming his way just now when he was halfway into his suit caught almost literally with his pants down Roger that he answered nah retake the bridge and
Wait for my orders he realized as he regarded the hole in his cabin door that the presence of the duffel had suddenly become a non-trivial problem to him it would only slow them down in a firefight if he or Vitali had to Lug it around but
He couldn’t just leave the thing in his cabin if Khloe was on the loose the duffel held enough C4 charges to blast a metapa size hole in the hole can you give us a visual on kloe’s location he called out to nah he hated having Chloe listening in he wished it
Had occurred to one of them to change to a different radio Channel when the three of them were in the axle together but there had been too much to think about not enough time to think uh Chief we’ve got a situation on the bridge Nina replied Chloe shut down
The security monitors and pulled all the keyboards out of the terminals I can’t pull up any apps I’ve got no visual Dion inhaled then exhaled a single passionate breath why had he ever taken up the study of stoicism that philosophy of Shipwrecked men and slaves if not to
Bear up under such reversals would his stoicism fail him now would he fail his stoicism there was he knew no extricating passion root and Branch from the human heart the only thing that we did right was the day we started to fight copy that stand by he needed a
Moment to think he stood with his suit half on taking in the acred stink of Khloe’s carpet fire the smoke of which had circulated throughout the rim if they could get one of the laptops linked up again to imperium’s command and data handling Network Nina could access the
Bridge’s systems that way he wasn’t about to announce that over Channel 8 right now though he and Vitali needed to get suited up get the duffel secured if they could he disliked thinking about all the corners of Imperium where Chloe could be now with the bridge interfaces
Disabled it would make sense for her to head for the hotel Administration office there she would have key access and the reckoners would not from inside Hotel Administration she would be able to pull up the security monitors would be able to follow the movements of the reckoners
Key fobs would be able to stay in communication with Earth she could be anywhere though she could just as easily be sneaking up the main Rim corridor from either direction in this moment perhaps she was somewhere else entirely somewhere that he did not expect at all
For all he knew she might be back hiding in lab module 1 again he secured the seal between his helmet and his suit leaned out of the hole in his cabin doorway and looked up and down the corridor as the vancleave’s airlock tapping ticked like a ruined stopwatch
Timing his and vitali’s dawning of their suits a couple of nerve-jangling minutes had passed before he and Vitali rev vued out in the corridor again their holsters belted around the outsides of their suits the duffel weighed down his arm like a sandbag Vitali looked shaken on the verge of tears perhaps his relief
That nah had not been lost had overcome his own Reserve from here what do we do vital asked from here we go back to collecting the ransoms but what do we do about Chloe it would be wise Dion knew to report to zadok if he could his team had
Abandoned plan a hours ago and had had to improvise plans B and C already but they did not have World enough and time to consult with zadok on an entire alphabet of plans Dion’s idea would at least get the reckoner Reckoning again taking from the rich to give to the poor
At the end of it all zadok would be grateful for Dion’s initiative unless she tries to interfere we leave her alone she’s taken up too much of our time already he looked down at the duffel and knew that without key access there would be no place to hide
The bag where Chloe couldn’t find it and if she was watching them over the security monitors from the hotel Administration office she might even see exactly where they hid it we need to get one of the laptops with access to the bridge computer up to Nina he continued
There are none we locked the laptops out of the bridge Network remember I’m saying we need to find a laptop that we can unlock we can get Nina back onto the bridge computer that way Vali stared at the ceiling behind Dion perhaps Into the Dead Eye of the security camera above
Them the library computers are closest but they never had Bridge permissions I suppose we could get the infirmary laptop that will work can you unlock it maybe not Chief I don’t know what Meredith did to lock it maybe nah will know how to get into it the image of nah
Floating on the bridge in her pressure suit tapping out a password on the laptop Key by key with a single fat finger of her glove seemed to Dion an apt symbol for their condition yet the mission would be more secure by far if Nina could get into imperium’s Network
And observe from the bridge Dion and Vitali made their suited unwieldy way to the gleaming infirmary with the pry bar Vitali wrenched open one of the locked cabinets within they found one of the laptop interfaces for the station’s command and data handling system Dion noted that Rogers or
Jessica’s tapping whoever of the two was doing it seemed no louder in this room even though the medac capsule they were trapped in was docked to an airlock just adjacent to the infirmary the sound seemed sometimes to come from everywhere and nowhere like a ghostly presence Dion
And Vitali headed back up the corridor summoned the beta spoke elevator and tapped through the warning that flashed on the touch screen in the event of a decompression on the Hub or the rim the elevators had been designed to operate like airlocks come in nah Dion said nah
Here go ahead Chief we’re sending up a laptop on the beta elevator see if you can get it unlocked and reconnected to the bridge Network I’ll try it will be slow work in the suit though Dion laid the laptop in the elevator car pushed the button marked Hub and stepped out
Into the main Corridor before the elevator could close the team was stretched too thin he thought as he watched the elevator set off for the axle they returned to the locked glass doors of the Fortuna Ballroom Bali levered open the latch with the pry bar and one of the doors responded to the
Insult by shattering into a thousand polygonal sequins of safety glass within the dim chamber one of the hostages yipped an almost strangled shriek as though she had swallowed a tiny toy trumpet Dion wasn’t sure whether her panicked Outburst was in response to the shattering of the door or to seeing him
And Vitali in pressure suits or to seeing him and Vitali at all Vitali took up his position at the entryway Dion strowed in regarding the positions of the hostages on the floor he disliked that his pressure suit had no pocket for the active denial device if he needed to
Draw his pistol he would need to hold the active denial piece in his other hand the active denial at least had a large enough button and no trigger guard easy enough to work even in his gloves he suspected that their stiff almost waddling entry in the suits had had a
More bizarre than intimidating effect on their charges they looked at him and Vitali with the same looks of Seasick dread that they had worn in the first hour of the hostage taking they looked as though the bill billionaires had never come to any agreement hours before as though they had forgotten or
Disbelieved every Assurance Dion had made them people he declaimed through his open Visor feeling like a medieval King in a suit of armor it’s time for you to fulfill the terms you all agreed to as soon as the signatories have moved the funds they committed to our Act of
Reckoning vital and I will be on our way we’ll leave you to wait for your rescue in peace he looked over his silent audience they appeared stunned the revolution isn’t going to wait for you Bali added his voice sounded a bit too menacing in Dion’s opinion Samir finally spoke up is
Imperium losing air is that why you’re wearing pressure suits there was a brief decompression event on the Hub of the station Dion explained but the breach has been contained the rim of Imperium is totally sealed off Vali and I are suited up because we’re ready to head home as soon
As you’ve ma your contributions to social Equity if the hostages found this explanation unsatisfying they certainly seemed skeptical enough Dion was pleased to have hit on an economically worded approximation of what was going on but something else was different about their mood he knew most of them looked
Stricken as though they expected him at any minute to begin searing them with the active denial device they seemed Paralyzed by his presence he passed his eyes slowly over the miserable collection like a person assembling a jigsaw puzzle knowing that the piece he needed was somewhere in front of him
Waiting to be seen in a new way he realized then that one of the pieces was missing where’s Miss ing he asked in a voice as quiet as Serene as that of a monk discoursing on the nature of the Divine the undercurrent of Terror among the prisoners seemed almost to take on a
Physical existence of its own now flapping around the Fortuna Ballroom like a confused bat we tried to stop her sir Alexander dun blurted but tears of Fowler had interrupted him before he had even finished his five words she couldn’t have gone far tiza nearly shouted Imperium is not that big
Meanwhile Viv voltera pointed wordlessly at a spot on the floor Dion regarded the tiny trapo by which one could access the hologram projector he had wondered about that space before during the planning he had concluded then after careful inspection that even someone as small as Cassie ing would find the space too
Tight to move in certainly none of the reckoners had been small enough to fit that seemed an interesting part of the plan to have been wrong about Samir gave voltera a look that Dion imagined must contain all the appr probium and shame of an Old Testament curse yet Dion found
The hostages panic and recrimination unexpectedly amusing not because he enjoyed their discomfort especially but but because Cassie ing was utterly unnecessary for the recker’s mission now the hostages would come up a million dollars short without her what was a million dollars among billions for all Dion cared Cassie could go back to her
Cabin and live stream makeup tutorials until rescue came was this Joy Rising within him had the reckoners managed in spite of their losses and confusion in spite of this farce of Grease fires and sabotaged key fobs to put the mission to rights he did not wish to divulged this
Happiness to the hostages in front of him not because he enjoyed frightening them but because they were likelier to move quickly to raise Ransom urgently if they were frightened of him yet part of him wanted to shake each of their hands to hug them and whirl them around the
Room for Joy messers Winters kesi please go with Vali to arrange your Ransom Dion’s voice betrayed neither anger nor contentment but he hoped conveyed hidden depths that his hostages might take for controlled rage both Samir and Nicholas regarded him wearily as they stood Nina what’s your status on the
Bridge he said into the communicator as the unkempt venture capitalist stepped into the main Corridor in front of Vitali who lugged the great duffel with one hand and trained his pistol on Samir and Nicholas with the other I think I figured out what Meredith did to lock these laptops out Nina replied I’m
Trying to reestablish the handshake with Imperium CDH give me a report report when you get things connected Dion surveyed his charges as they sat before the wide Windows of the ballroom the station moved over the night side of the Earth but in this moment the windows showed
That the ballroom was also facing away from Earth looking out on a black field of stars that Dion had always found tantalizing and inaccessible one day he knew Humanity would be a just and wise species one day no one would own wealth 10 orders of magnitude greater than the rest gone
Would be the color line gone all such ucer division gone all stratification all oppression and Humanity would in that day live Among the Stars they would think on their ancestors with a bemused pity reflecting on the groping of Dion’s generation through a miserable bited age that celebrated every variety of exploitation and
Parasitism Humanity in that day would be prone to other Follies certainly other Injustice but the injustices that so pressed on Dion and animated his actions the injustices that had given rise to the reckoners would be resolved like an untangled knot like the solution to a child’s riddle the room was so silent
That he could even hear the breathing of some of the hostages the Phantom tapping real or imagined of the van Cleaves trapped in the medac had gone silent Commander Stubblefield a man addressed him in a soft voice Dion looked down to see ximing Lee staring at him with an unsettling Focus Commander Stubblefield
Lee continued I must respectfully insist that you bring Cassie ing back to the group we had an agreement each of the guests would pay some part of the ransom we have done everything you have asked and many of us find it unacceptable that Cassie will possibly return without
Having paid anything I for one refus to pay her part of the ransom Dion stared back at Lee feeling at a loss for how to respond to the man’s insistence what was he to make of Lee’s unaccountably dignified bearing he supposed that people like Lee did not become billionaires by forgiving anyone
A million dollar debt but Dion found it irritating almost shocking that even as a hostage Lee would feel entitled to insist on his wishes being carried out still Dion had to acknowledge that Lee had a point Cassie’s Escape represented a literal breach of contract if Vali
Could bring her back without a lot of fuss if the contract be honored just then nahk voice came over Channel 8 we’re back in Chief we have access to all command and data handling functions excellent override K AIS functions for the hotel Administration office if Chloe
Was there now or even if she wasn’t the reckoner should have shut down computer access for the hotel admin office from the beginning Roger that key access function overridden now restrict all key access for all key fobs on emperium with the exception of yours mine and Vitali there
Was a pause of a few seconds while Nina transferred the balance of power on the station back to the reckoners kex is restricted for all but we three Dion silently corrected the grammar error for his own benefit all but us three very good if you can get a
Visual on Khloe Bonia Cassie ing too if you can find her commander Lee repeated did Dion dare imagine that he might recapture Cassie that he might even be able to spare Nina for a few minutes have her recover the medevac’s original splash down coordinate so that Dion
Could keep his word to the van Cleaves no camera feeds from some areas Nina responded no visual on stand by I’ve got visual on cassing she’s on the main room Corridor in the vicinity of airlock 2 moving toward beta spoke at that moment the station alarm Clon gave three short piercing blasts chapter
9 8 minutes earlier if they discover either of us I’ll give you three short blasts on the station claxon Chloe said she disliked that Cassie had no Communicator disliked that the general issue emergency pressure suits in the hotel admin office were several sizes too big for Cassie
Who to be fair was several sizes smaller than anyone else on Imperium she didn’t want Cassie sneaking off to her State room just to retrieve the pressure suit that fit her the whole trip seemed an intolerable risk still it was easy for Chloe to say that the risk was
Intolerable Chloe was already wearing her own pressure suit if you hear three short blasts Khloe continued repeating herself as though Cassie were one of her College freshman biology 101 students find somewhere dark or with no cameras and take cover the restrooms a storage closet aate room one of the conference
Rooms even just get yourself out of sight I’ll be watching you on the monitors and I’ll come to you if I can as soon as you get the suit on hail me on Channel 5 remember that they might be listening in say as little as you can Cassie nodded with a head snapping
Conclusiveness she put the lanyard with the new administrative key fob that kloe had just assigned to her from the hotel Administration computer around her neck Khloe had given the fob no name just an asterisk as a label as though that would fool anyone checking the station schematic on the key access application
On the bridge she had replaced angel’s name with a single parenthesis on her own fob too Cassie gave Chloe a squeeze on the forearm as if to reassure her or perhaps herself Chloe scanned the security monitors once more and gave her the all clear Vali and Dion were still
Coming up on the Fortuna Ballroom cameras and Eno was still on the bridge tapping away at a laptop Cassie opened the hatch to the main Corridor and dashed out this is a horrible idea Chloe repeated to herself when she was alone she had tried to impress on Cassie the
Idea that all living requires the balancing of relative risks yes the people Cassie called the reckoners might find the two of them holed up in the hotel admin office and yes the reckoners might have explosives and yes if they used explosives to blow open the office
Hatch they might cause a hull breach yes dying in a vacuum was a risk when you went into space but Chloe had tried to explain if de blew open the office hatch a whole breach would be the least of Cassie’s problems there were many risks a pressure suit wouldn’t protect against
Many other risks that Cassie was courting by venturing out for her suit Chloe would rather by far that they just stayed out of Dion’s way Cassie had argued that if she could just get to her stateroom and get her pressure suit on they could find an unused radio channel
And communicate through the Snoopy caps of their respective fitted suits if they were separated Chloe answered that any radio channel on the Snoopy caps could be Eaves dropped on by the reckoners more importantly if she wanted to keep from being separated she shouldn’t try to sneak into her stateroom but it was
Clear that Cassie was going to do what she wanted Khloe wasn’t about to pull a gun on her and force her to stay Khloe wished not for the first time that she had managed to scoop up Meredith’s weapon when she had sped past Meredith’s corpse up on the Hub but Chloe could not
Have spared a moment then now she had the time to spare but Meredith pistol might as well be on earth anyway Cassie had never held a firearm in her life perhaps it didn’t matter that there was no spare weapon to give her but Chloe hated the idea of Cassie sneaking around
Imperium without even the pretense of being armed alone again sitting amid the Clutter she had unloaded from her stuff sacks the keyboards the nearly cashed out fire extinguisher Chloe wondered over the identity of the person that Meredith had communicated with just before she died had Meredith been in too
Much of a hurry to delete the record of the call before she was called out to get herself shot Chloe tried to ascribe some meaning to the strange Avatar of zadok’s profile picture the pale half- laded ceramic mask with the imperturbable face of some judgmental Idol while she watched through the
Security monitors as The Slight Elfin woman she seemed more girl than woman really patted up the corridor Chloe pondered the information Cassie had shown her Cassie was cleverer than Chloe had given her credit for using Khloe’s admin permissions to sift through the internet use logs for the station’s
Computers the program Meredith had used crypsis seemed also to have accessed Imperium server several times through someone’s Dion’s phone three calls in the last 48 hours one of them between the hours of the opening Gala and the hostage taking had these been conferences with zadok 2 in their first minutes after finding
One another after holding up in the hotel admin office Khloe and Cassie had Skyped helmond even though it had been 4 in the morning in California helment had picked right up he was dressed already looking rattled someone from orbital Ventures had awakened him earlier as soon as they were aware of Dion’s
Takeover on the ground what the hell is going on up there Klo Helman had asked when he picked up khloee had felt tears rising up in her as soon as she saw his piercing stricken eyes the anxiety pulling at the corners of his mouth she had wished she could reach to the screen
To wrap herself around him hold on and just cry however Khloe Bonia had been an expert from the time she was 8 years old in suppressing the urge to cry Dion and a team of employes have taken over the station she had said her voice as flat
As if she had been reciting data points of radical lengths for a graduate assistant to write down Conrad is dead six people are dead by my count he looked utterly at sea for a moment leted out a long freighted sigh do you know anything about what the hijackers want
He said At Last At This Cassie had broken in Dion says they’ll leave Imperium if we pay 8 billion in cryptocurrency they call themselves The reckoners the reckoners Helman had repeated in a tone that Khloe took for disdain as though to mock the high-handedness of the name if what they
Want is money then why the hell are they killing people two of them I killed Khloe had said two reckoners Angel and Meredith she had felt in that moment another strange welling up behind her words a desire to recount all to explain to lay out in every detail her claim of
Self-defense as though she were acting as her own legal counsel before a judge but at that moment she had also felt intuitively that however much there was to say about it there was just as much to say about any killing about every killing for as long as humans had had
Language to make sense of the world even those murders that one read about in the news the ones that seemed so senseless and irrational were final strands in a great web of causes and effects stretching back across the Killer’s life the lives of ancestors the lives of a
Great host of strangers and loved ones and enemies who had helped or hindered or failed to help or to hinder there was everything to say about every killing which meant paradoxically that there was nothing to say In This Moment about the two killings she had committed when can
You send a rescue mission cassad interjected Chloe had already explained to her the temporal demands of launch Windows the rare slivers on the clock when it was feasible for a rocket to leave the Earth and rendevu with a perpetually hurdling orbital station it was easier by far for a quarterback to
Land a football directly in the hands of a wide receiver running a fly Route 50 yards away she couldn’t blame Cassie though for wanting a second opinion we have have a rocket on the pad right now ready to go we’re sending up 20 security Personnel but you can’t just
Launch a rocket whenever you want and link up with your destination our launch window won’t hit for about 2 and 1/2 hours aen discouraged silence had descended over Cassie then which Helman broke are you too safe right now out of sight we’re good Chloe had said but
Listen I need you to do some research for me the reckoners have been in touch with someone on the ground with the use named zadok can you find out anything about them these guys have a lot of equipment up here and they’ve been planning this a long time someone on the
Ground has to be helping them out Helman had repeated the name begun spelling it out z a d okay Chloe had spelled out the name for him I’ll do what I can he had said staring down at his pad of paper as though to find some hidden meaning in
The letters he had spelled but you have to do this for me Klo stay out of their way no Gunplay no stupid heroics if what these reckoners want is money just let them take it and get out of your hair I’ll die if you get yourself killed over some [ __ ]
Mugging I’ll call you again when I can Chloe had said just find out what you can about this zadok her last glimpse of him when they had signed off was of a man older than he was owl-eyed shaky her boyfriend had seemed on the verge of crying himself he worried over her she
Knew and she supposed he was watching the value of the company he had built melt away to nothing there was no way that Imperium would survive as a luxury hotel after a hostage taking on the inaugural night now sheltered alone in the hotel admin office as she watched
Cassie running up the rim Corridor toward her stateroom Chloe thought of the Glimpse she had had of helmond and was filled with an aching sadness she felt lonely in a way that she had not felt in all the weeks she had worked by herself on Imperium and all the months of solitary field
Workk for her doctoral research in the dark divide it dawned on her with a sudden stealthy force that her Solitude which she had always felt as a kind of obstinate prideful hermeticism was not part of her native personality her independence her ability to be away from helmond from everyone had been learned
Solitude had emerged in her as an Adaptive response to the great loneliness that had been with her since childhood perhaps since birth it felt to her as though her mother’s constant distance her volatility her death which had dried into Khloe’s childhood under the cold son of her father’s silence and emotional
Colorblindness had drawn her personality into a taut immobile senu that wrapped her mind always around the work at hand why the senu had slipped now why she felt this aching loneliness when the work at hand was so heavy was a mystery to her she looked up at the security
Camera of the hotel admin office at itself the lens of which she had covered with duct tape in an abundance of caution as though she were some form of exotic particle her presence might be inferred but she would not be seen Chloe watched Cassie let herself into her
Stateroom a moment later on another of the monitors Samir and Nicholas Winter’s kesi stepped out of the Fortuna Ballroom into the spray of safety glass spangling the corridor where Vitali had broken open the glass doors with a pry bar a few minutes before Vitali walked out
After to them his steps fluid and poised in spite of his great bulk and the bulk of the bag he carried like the pacing of a tiger Samir and Nicholas chatted together with tense tight mouths as they walked before vitali’s drawn weapon as though they had already grown accustomed
To being threatened every minute of their lives Khloe watched the three walk the corridor in the same direction that Cassie had gone though Cassie’s stateroom was at the antipo of vali’s current position on the rim the emergence of one of the reckoners in the cour Corridor was exactly the situation
Chloe had dreaded Dion was conferring with Nina over Channel 8 as they tried to regain access to the bridge computers the possibility distressed her from the bridge Khloe’s computer terminal could be overridden her key fob permissions could be revoked Dion’s permissions could be restored if Itali was walking
Them to the library as Cassie had told her the reckoners were doing with the hostages they would be out of the corridor within the next minute or so Chloe watched on the monitor as the three passed right in front of the hatch to the hotel Administration office they
Passed so closely that she heard for a moment the low murmur of Samir and Nicholas’s chatting they were for a moment no more than 3 or 4 meters away from her an instinct climbed up her spine a wordless unreflective sense that a window of opportunity had opened in
Front of her she could if she acted now right now crack open the hatch if she was lucky take aim at the center of ital’s broad back fluidly as a stocking cat she Drew her pistol from its duct tape holster and crept to the hatch then she paused the chance passed as silently
As it had arrived what stayed her hand it was nothing that she had reasoned though she did have good reasons to pause she wasn’t thinking in that moment about the dangers of overpenetration even using hollow point rounds or that she might have killed Nicholas or Samir
As well as Vitali or even instead of Vitali she wasn’t thinking about Dion also near also armed she wasn’t thinking about what he might do if she advertised her location like that she wasn’t thinking about helman’s advice to steer clear of heroics or what heroics meant
In such a moment miles from any human community that had ever existed what stayed her hand was just as instinctive as preverbal as the urge that had put the weapon in her hand the moment before as she told herself later she was not a killer that’s not not me she said many
Moments after she had let the chance pass as she tried in retrospect to attribute meanings to her actions and lack of actions she was not a killer she told herself even though she’d shot a woman in the head not an hour before even though she’d driven a screwdriver
Into a man’s brain earlier that day but in that moment wordless she turned away from the closed hatch and on the security monitor she found Vitali and Samir and Nicholas as they walked into the library once Cassie got into her suit Chloe knew that she could get a warning to her over
The communicators keep her from passing by the library until Vali had returned to the ballroom if he ever did she’ll get back safe Chloe told herself she rehearsed in her memory the time required to Dawn one of the fitted pressure suits 2 minutes to do it right Chloe switched between Channel 8 where
Dion and Nina still conferred over the handshake between laptop and server and channel 5 come in Cassie she whispered nothing Chloe listened to the dead air of Channel 5 as long as she dared had they agreed to use Channel 5 she wasn’t misremembering she scanned the security
Monitors for any sign of Cassie as though she would find a new undiscovered camera feed spying on Cassie’s stateroom when she could no longer bear the wait Chloe switched back to channel 8 restricted for all but we three Nina was saying very very good responded Dion if
You can get a visual on Khloe Bonia Cassie ing too if you can find her Chloe did not know what nah had just said besides the fact that Dion had found the news very good she felt again the nightmarish Rush of adrenaline that Transcendent animal Clarity that breaks
In upon pursued prey she darted one more glance at the security camera lens in the office mummified in duct tape no camera feeds from some areas Nina began voice tentative and thoughtful no visual on standby and in the same moment that nah announced Cassie’s appearance to Diana
And Vitali she showed up on Khloe’s monitor running along the corridor from her stateroom door toward the hotel admin office she didn’t have her suit on Chloe gave three short piercing blasts on the station alarm claxon Chloe had a talent for moving beyond regret more easily than most human beings yet even
She felt buffeted by regret that Cassie had ever stepped out of the hotel admin office if the reckoners were smart they had surely revoked her key fob access by now as well as Cassie’s she knew too that the hotel Administration office computer could be overridden by the
Bridge in an emergency there was only one place on the rim that controlled the emergency claxons they knew now where she was no matter Cassie’s running now nah announced over the communicators she’s carrying something under her arm looks like a preure suit any weapons that you can see Dion
Responded negative on weapons it was impossible for Chloe to know where Cassie was running every location on the rim faced that eternally visible ring of the corridor she ran the way she had come as though she was returning to the hotel admin office by the same long
Route in a way that would pass the library and avoid the Fortuna Ballroom Chloe wondered if Cassie was panicking and had forgotten to hide anyway what good would hiding do her now that she had been spotted Chloe watched Cassie try her key fob on the door of the
Salarium she seemed to accept her revoked access or was Chloe merely imagining Cassie’s equinity had she expected Cassie to react with a petulant foot stomp or with anime eyed tearful mugging for the security camera how she might have chronicled such a setback in one of her Instagram videos was totally
Unlike the intense chill hurry with which she swiped the fob swiped again looked up the corridor in both directions scanned the options available to her she regarded the open entryway to the fitness center on one side of the hall spun around assessed the three private locker room doors across from it
And dashed through the middle door she’s going into the middle changing room nah announced with the tone of a woman playing three card Monty at Fisherman’s Warf do you have a visual on the hotel admin office Dion asked negative that feed is do chief well do that bridge
Dion replied cut computer access to Hotel admin Chloe watched as the Windows of the security monitor the key access program and all the utilities folded up they left behind the blank blue wallpaper of the orbital Ventures it system the color reminded Chloe of the blue screen of death that Afflicted old
Windows machines when they crashed of course they knew where she was whether they could see her on the security cameras or not she and Cassie might have been wise to have simply locked themselves in one of the changing rooms from the beginning they might have stayed hidden a while longer that way
Maybe until rescue in the Silence of the hotel admin office Chloe could hear once again the faint tapping like the distant plaintive knocking of a slow-moving woodpecker that she had heard in the corridor before if it was the clacking of a malfunctioning fan it might knock
Into the end of the world before anyone got to it she wouldn’t be the one repairing it whether she lived or died whether Imperium one day became a storied old hotel for dowagers like some kind of orbital Grand Plaza or turned into the most expensive piece of space
Junk in the history of the world keep an eye on the hotel admin hatches Dion ordered and keep a surprised of cass’s movement Roger that minutes passed in silent at first Chloe felt relieved to hear nothing no coordination between nah and Vitali and Dion like some Sinister three-body problem the silence began to
Trouble her soon enough though the last attack had come in silence perhaps Vitali and Dion had begun using a different Channel she clicked through the other channels heard nothing she sat on the floor by the bulkhead and pressed her ear against the hatch to the corridor besides the far off clacking
Sometimes louder sometimes so soft that it barely grazed her hearing there was no other sound in the corridor she wondered what the hell they were doing in the rest of the station if they had resolved to ignore her or if they had in secret planned another fake out by which
They would blow the hatches of the hotel admin office and take her out she would be hearing the same silence right now in that moment she heard when she pressed her ear against the hatch footsteps out in the corridor the clicking of a knee or ankle as somebody walked was it one
Person or more than one were they stopping at her door or passing by Chloe wished incongruously that she could use the blank computer on the desk to call helmond again to see his face for one more minute she wouldn’t be calling anyone on that computer though she might
As well be trying to call her dead father Chloe wrestled for a few minutes with a desire to remain behind reinforced hatches while the reckoners did whatever they had come to Imperium to do would she be safer here what story would she tell herself in a year in 30
Years if Cassie was recaptured if they punished her if they flushed her out of one of the airlocks at the same time What could she do to help Cassie would Khloe give up one defensible position to join Cassie in a less defensible one Khloe thought about helman’s advice how little his
Words seemed to fit the circumstances of her existence like so many Communications with Earth over her months on Imperium helman’s words had been just more opinions from Ground Control folks about a situation they didn’t seem to understand Chloe found herself contemplating the same old bargain all life required the balancing
Of relative risks the fitness center was across the hall from the locker rooms if she and Cassie could take up positions behind the weight stacks and keep the wall-to-wall pictures Windows looking out on space behind them the reckoners wouldn’t fire into the gym toward all that glass they wouldn’t get much of a
Ransom from anybody if they caused a decompression event on the rim maybe Chloe and Cassie could hold up there for a few hours Khloe wasn’t sure she’d be any less safe than she was now Cassie would almost certainly be safer once Chloe decided she saw no point in delay
She dropped Angel’s old key fob on the bar of the reception desk why carry something that wouldn’t open any doors anymore but would advertise her location to anyone on the bridge she’s running nah shouted into channel8 as Chloe burst out of the hatch into the main Corridor
Running full bore for the locker rooms she could not attend to Dion’s answer however she looked to her right as she sprinted training her pistol on the doorway to the library in the fragment of a glimpse that she had she could not tell whether anyone was there she kept
Running she benefited from the rise of the Ring Corridor before and behind her she guessed as she ran that a pursuer would have to be following within 50 m on this hamster wheel to have a shot at her from an upright position for anyone farther away whether before or behind
Her the sloping curve of the ceiling concealed her nah called out her progress she’s past gamma spoke heading to a beta Roger that Dion responded Vali heads up Chloe spared a single glance behind her as she ran the corridor was empty shining in baleful blue light as she passed the cafeteria her footfalls
Squatched through the soaked charred carpet of the grease fire she had set hours before in that moment she had a strange sense that she was traveling along the curve of a terrible karmic wheel forced into an eternal circular path like an ironic punishment the ancient Greeks might fabulate for the
Afterlife of an evil King she was approaching the changing rooms she would bang on the door and call out to Cassie if she came out quickly perhaps they could make it across the Corridor into the fitness center without being fired on Khloe passed gamma spoke her stride
Bounding in the 85g as though she were a college Athlete on the runway for the long jump but Chloe knew something was up as soon as the locker room entrances came into view the door of the middle locker room stood open its sliding panel deformed into a gentle sinusoidal curl
As Chloe slowed down to consider what she had not expected Vitali stepped out of the locker room into the corridor in the moment Khloe took aim she saw that he had Cassie ing headlocked in his Burly arm Khloe hesitated a half second watched Vitali began to raise the pistol
In his other hand Chloe turned to drop back as she turned she caught a glimpse of Cassie twisting herself and vali’s clumsy headlock Chloe scrambled back the way she had come watched as a gash on the carpet appeared a couple of feet in front of her and then another as Vitali
Fired on her she took off running expecting at any moment the shot would take her down down from behind as she cast her mind about like a trapped rat for where she might without a key hide in a dark defensible space she’s turned back toward beta Chief nah said over the
Communicators she heard another shot 2 seconds later yet she felt herself sprinting unimpeded unshot toward the pillar of the beta spoke elevator Dion’s low voice came over Channel 8 Vali Hold Your Position I’m heading her off Chloe did not Wonder in that moment who was watching the hostages if Dion was right
Toward her she thought of nothing didn’t wonder why vali’s last shot had not hit her didn’t regret having left the hotel Administration office one door the only door nearby that she knew she could open was within her reach the door to the beta spoke elevator she punched the
Button to call the elevator car she’s going into the Beta spoke elevator Nina called out casing is down Vitali reported in a voice curiously smoothed of emotional Contours come again vital chloee could hear Dion’s heavy breathing over the communicators as he ran toward her Chloe tried to force what Vitali had
Said from her mind even as he repeated himself she had a few seconds maybe five maybe 20 before Dion would come upon her here the touchscreen above the elevator call Button warned her about the lack of atmosphere on the Hub her finger jabbed through the message acknowledgement
Screen the doors opened for her as she boarded and the doors slid closed behind her Chloe pulled the rip cord at her waist that began the emergency pressurization of her suit she’s boarded the beta spoke elevator Nina announced her suit stiffened filled with a personal atmosphere she heard Dion over
Channel 8 for a man who had just been running who had just learned that one of his underlings had shot one of the hostages his voice seemed a Placid skin a skiff of ice over a lake filled with many toothed fish in the Bottom mud Vali
I need you here Nina secure the bridge take up a position in the elevator Landing for beta spoke on the axle neutralize Chloe chapter 10 5 minutes earlier Bali was ready to go home he had liked the idea of space once sure when he was a kid maybe this
Mission had cured him of that feeling though Samir and Nicholas had moved the money fast from what Vitali could tell the couple’s asset manager had set everything up before for their second call Samir put up their collateral and they secured the loan the collateral properties were all in places Vitali had
Never been and wasn’t able to visualize he wasn’t even sure where some of the places were if the rest of the hostages could get their ransoms so quickly the team would be done Vali and Nina could go home and the first phase of the Revolution would be underway now he had
Brought Samir and Nicholas back to the Fortuna Ballroom Dion motioned Vitali over pulled the pry bar from that tedious duffel and dropped the tool into vitali’s hand head over to the middle dressing room and bring back Cassie Deon said keep your eyes open for Chloe Dion
Hadn’t needed to say that last part over the last 12 hours Chloe had transformed in vitali’s imagination from a factor almost beneath his notice to a serious inconvenience to the [ __ ] who had almost killed nah he moved up the corridor the only thing he would miss about space was effortlessly he could
Run in the0 85g he jogged along the track of the big hamster wheel feeling quick as a much smaller man the way Messi used to dash up the Right Touch line on a Counterattack for FC Barcelona he checked each way up the corridor when he arrived at the dressing
Rooms holstered his weapon rammed the pry bar into the seam between door panel and door jam he wrenched at the door panel the latch sheared off with a metallic wine he pulled his gun out again using the crook of the pry bar to peel open the panel which slid halfway
On its track before it jammed Vitali ducked and stepped sideways into the opening Cassie sat wide-eyed on the bench at the back of the dressing room her knees drawn up to her chin Vitali made a rise smile at her he shook his head like she was a kid out after curfew
That he had caught that was when Vitali heard nah call over Channel 8 she’s running once again Chloe had made something simple a lot more complicated for Vali he stood over Cassie considering his options now that that woman was loose again Bali had once imagined when he imagined anything that
Once the revolution began he would be fighting official thugs police security guards eventually even regular troops people in uniforms that the propertarian had hired or fooled into serving them Vitali didn’t like having to fight a regular crew member wearing the same jumpsuit he wore someone without a badge
Or any reason to help out a billionaire still he knew enough not to underestimate her now and if she wanted to stand in the way of the Revolution what business was out of his nahk voice came over the radio again she’s past gamma spoke heading toward beta Roger
That Dion responded Vali heads up Vali gave the question no more thought he slipped the crook of the pry bar into his belt reached out pulled Cassie to her feet with his free hand he appreciated that she moved quickly without crying or whimpering ing Vitali drew the tiny woman into a headlock
Don’t do anything stupid and I won’t hurt you she was so small that he could feel her feet flailing lifting off the floor while he returned with her to the ruined door his first impression was that she was lighter and easier to maneuver than that damn duffel had been
He ducked out into the Hall careful not to crush Cassie ing in the crook of his arm when he saw Chloe up the corridor from him breaking with a stutter of her feet as he appeared Chloe looked them over with a distant clinical eye as she raised her pistol then seemed to decide
All at once to Juke and scramble back the way she had come Vali raised his pistol took aim he could feel Cassie ing writhing in the crook of his other arm Lively as a fish she kicked at the side of his knee ineffectually still she was troubling his concentration he overshot
Khloe missed her by a meter or more Vali had never wanted children but Cassie wriggling in his headlock felt like what he imagined it would be like to deal with an unruly son or daughter a son of his would be Cassie’s size by the time he was 8 years old he aimed again
Felt the jabbing of her heel against the outside of his thigh felt a strange building sharpness at the base of his biceps just as he was squeezing off his second shot he could tell that Cassie was biting his arm even through the thickness of his pressure suit she had
Latched on clamped herself to his arm with a force that impressed and infuriated him the second shot went wide his first impulse was to Bear Down on the headlock to break the teeth out of her mouth with the force of his arm perhaps snap her neck but the pain in
His arm was intensifying and she dropped out of his headlock as soon as he tried to adjust her position an old rage flooded through vitali’s limbs then Khloe still ran from him Cassie scrambled across the floor in the opposite direction down the corridor but vitali’s mind had contracted to an
Ancient lyic Fury the nest of words constructed around him from birth from before birth around his whole life fell away insubstantial a babble of Gossip advertising Gauzy pop lyrics maxims of the Bible sided parents who seemed from the beginning not to know what to make of him teachers subtle remonstrances
That he knew inarticulately to be a kind of ridicule thousands of night hours and a kind of autodidactic creation of himself at the computer reading and disputing with the finest mind he was capable of understanding Ing and many he couldn’t people the world couldn’t be bothered to publish or even to recognize
Slogans about pain on the posters and dojo and on the t-shirts of other Meat Heads and weit rooms the chorus of all the human beings he had met who save one had never bothered trying to understand him none of this slow formation and deformation of vali’s Soul had any word
To say now all the necessary words and silences had come and gone long ago Vali turned and raised the pistol without reflection just as Cassie ing was rising from a Crouch into a full bore run a quick thoughtless shot crumpled her as he turned to train his weapon once more
On Chloe he heard Dion’s voice over the communicator the words almost nonsense to him nonetheless called him out of his storm of adrenaline and back into a human world of language and plans Itali Hold Your Position I’m heading her off in that moment Chloe passed far enough
Up the wheel of the corridor that she slipped from his sight Dion’s order snapped taut like a cord between Vitali and the rest of humanity Vitali could consider at last what he had just done the ACT settled upon him like a bitter gray Haze he turned to regard his
Handiwork looked down at Cassie as the blood began to soak the white of her jumpsuit her breath was panicked she still wried it had not been a very good shot Vali remarked to himself an Impulse Rose in him which he neither understood nor knew the origin of to shoot her again and again
To put as many bullets in her as necessary to make her stop writhing like a stricken snake Nina said something over the communicator as he pointed the gun had she been speaking to him nahk voice whatever it had said seemed to call him to account to lay bare his
Mistake cassing is down he said into the communicator come again Vitali it was Dion asking now I said cassing is down she tried to escape and I shot her he raised the pistol once more took aim in that moment he heard nah again he could hear a hint of panic in her voice
Perhaps another would not have recognized it but the sound anguished him she’s bed the beta spoke elevator Vali I need you here Dion ordered Vali listened to the tone of Dion’s voice as he continued giving orders to nah it was this quiet cool Timber more than anything that Dion had actually ordered
That persuaded Vitali to raise his weapon to turn to run up the corridor toward the beta spoke elevator chapter 11 the faint popping of gunshots sounded from up the corridor somewhere as he listened sir Alexander Dunn surveyed his domain the parts he could see of his domain anyway at the moment what he
Could see were the bare walls of one of imperium’s many conference rooms the Fortuna ballroom at least had $300,000 worth of graceful curval linear design touches the Fortuna Ballroom also had views of earth every couple of minutes now though Dion had hustled them up the corridor at gunpoint lugging that Corp
Siiz duffel he had locked them all in a far drearier chamber one with a solid sliding hatch that locked a room so windowless and Spartan that sir Alexander was sure the hotel staff had never intended that the guests would spend any time there what kind of space Hotel needed four conference rooms no
One day this blank box of a space would have been the spot for an arcade a whiskey Lounge a film studio a bondage club for something that is that orbital Ventures had been hoping to put in once the hotel started making money sir Alexander consoled himself that at least
There were chairs in this room sir Alexander had been in worse scrapes than this not as a hostage he had never had that particular honor before true but financially he had once found himself staring back at this much Financial ruin and worse back in his wild days to be
Sure a hostage taking in the first 24 hours of operation of the world’s first orbital Hotel would he surmised exert some downward pressure on the stock price of the hotel’s parent company but how much downward pressure would the price bounce around for a few months before the company writed itself or was
The stock a meteor that he was riding down to a deafening impact with Earth orbital Ventures could write itself he thought if he could get them back to leasing the station to the university Labs or if they could secure some incubation money for Zerg manufacturers the hotel could wait until it was ready
Imperium hadn’t been close to ready as a hotel if it had been ready there wouldn’t have been an overloaded electrical circuit during the group spacewalk if it had been ready he wouldn’t be sitting around a conference table right now with a crowd of other hostages and party dresses and pajamas
Listening to gunfire out in the hallway like a man who can’t stop picking at a scab sir Alexander cataloged how he would have orbital Ventures handle things differently when they tried the hotel again the orbital Market was not the wild west not some race between tribes of Viking Raiders what had it
Benefited the company to open Imperium before hesperis or axium or Orion span could get to Market he wanted no more move fast and break things cheerleading at orbital Ventures he would allow no more Corner cutting for a start he wanted much more robust background checks seriously what did it say about
The company that both the commanding officer and security chief of Imperium as well as both of the medical staffers turned out to be hijackers and thieves something within him doggedness his biographer might call it or perhaps delusion would not allow sir Alexander to imagine any other outcome than the
Reopening of the hotel it was that doggedness or delusion that had kept him afloat through his bankruptcy last time during the dotom bubble he was much older now of course less inclined to work into the small hours more thoughtful he hoped about taking risks on the fly but what he might have lost
In speed he had gained in wisdom he was a Wy old FOX NOW one who had learned the scent of every trap he had encountered he had to admit that he was caught in a new sort of trap but he would learn the scent of this one too he
Would not be caught again this way he had counted only three shots in the corridor then silence three shots compared to the dozens that had been fired during the whole breach 2 hours ago constituted an improvement in his opinion he felt A peculiar distance from himself from the plain conference room
Around him as though he were observing his ordeal happening to another person he had been weighing out a number of likely outcomes for this person he observed this aging libertine in a vomitous Wizard’s robe in one outcome the man would sit tight trust to the word of Dion and his henchmen Lackey
Whoever they were pirates maybe Dion and his Pirates would squeeze the [ __ ] coin out of the mall then fly off in the Starliner all sir Alexander would need to do was await rescue but sir Alexander didn’t in fact trust Dion gunfire is not a sound that one Associates with a
Well-run hostage taking who were they shooting now he expected that at any moment Dion or Vitali would burst in covered in blood perhaps to tell them once again that everything was running smoothly sir Alexander was disinclined to wait around for another flaccid reassurance like that but what were the
Alternatives available to him could he shinny out of some as yet undiscovered crawl space in this room the way Cassie had slipped out of the ballroom that too struck him as a foolish course of action he wondered what the chances were that one of those three gunshots he had just
Heard had killed Cassie he felt a Pang of grief for the imagined death of this beautiful girl that he had only known a few weeks but who in another world might one day have been Charmed into seeing something in him Dion seemed unlikely to kill one of the billionaires if what he
Really wanted was Ransom but Cassie’s portion of the ransom was so poultry as to be inconsequential killing her might even motivate some of the wealthier hostages if Dion walked in here and threw Cassie’s corpse on the table Lee would unload his stock for crypto in a hurry
In this new room sir Alexander had taken a seat in the the far Corner set away from most of the others across from him staring at the table in front of her like an unpopular girl in the lunchroom sat Viv voltera sir Alexander looked at her with new eyes as though she were
Some kind of flower that had been planted in his garden for 20 years that he had noticed for the first time just now because it happened to be in bloom when he passed by this too had happened to him as he often went many months without setting foot in his garden she
Was no beauty of C in’s caliber however the same could be said of most human beings on the planet and now that he was regarding Viv in the absence of the dearly imagined recent gunshot victim sir Alexander remarked to himself that Miz voltera had a kind of poise that
Could on many occasions substitute admirably for beauty at that moment as though she were aware of Sir Alexander’s musings Viv raised her eyes to meet his she arched her brow as though she were issuing a challenge or perhaps posing a question one corner of her per lopsided
Mouth lifted in the hint of a smile are you ready to pay sir Alexander asked her I doubt that Dion Stubblefield is all that concerned about my contribution she said in her quiet Morant contralto but yes I was ready hours ago she swept a stray strand of hair behind
Her ear and you are you ready I suppose I am if there’s nothing else for it this was he supposed essentially true however it was only on answering the question posed so directly that sir Alexander realized that he was still on the hunt for an alternative for some opportunity worth
Snatching h of me he continued party feels like just making a run for the Starliner viv’s mouth curled into a Ry but unmistakable smile now you’re going to escape through a decompressed part of the station in your wizard robe if the chance came I might take it every room has an emergency pressure
Suit he couldn’t tell whether she was humoring him or pitying him she might even have been a little Charmed what was your personal best for getting into the emergency suits back in training she asked 1 minute 41 seconds that’s a very long time to be allowed out without a
Chaperon he Shrugged our chaperons have been gone for at least a couple of minutes now she glanced around the room with a wide-eyed theatricality like Clara B playing a dominatrix you’re ready to get into the pressure suit then sir Alexander noticed for the first time that this conference
Room did not have the heret for ubiquitous closet containing the emergency pressure suit no fire extinguisher either he was right then no one had expected this room to be used for some imagined orbital conference why then were there chairs and a conference table and why were there no chairs in
The ballroom had Dion kept them there just to make them sit on the floor would you come with me if we got the chance he asked he found the smile she gave him both inscrutable and intoxicating he saw at once how easily she could have Hoodwinked her investors for so
Long you’d have to find a suit for me as well she said and I’m not a fan of the emergency suits they make me look like the Michelin Man the bulk of the suits did present a non-trivial problem for his Escape fantasy not the look of them
Of course sir Alexander dun had never spent a minute worrying about what he looked like but the suit’s clumsiness like those novelty sumo wrestler outfits that people wear at American fun fairs made them extremely difficult to maneuver in he would present a fat Target to anyone within 100 met it
Occurred to him that he still had no idea how many Pirates there were Dion Vitali Nina likely at least one other maybe a whole failinks of them that he didn’t know about how many would get a shot at him bouncing along in the plump beach ball of an emergency
Suit so let’s say we find a way to get into our fitted suits come with me then this really is an elaborate fantasy she shot back I don’t remember reading that you’ve ever flown a Starliner it’s true I haven’t but flying a Starliner is not so different from
Flying the Morgan Stern he offered I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it as a pilot the two seem quite different to me she was in fact correct the Starliner was as different from the space plane he had once flown on as it was from a weather balloon and anyway to
Be scrupulously accurate sir Alexander had never actually flown the Morgan Stern contrary to all the press releases from Hesperus Aerospace sir Alexander had been co-pilot in name only his great accomplishment in the Morgan Stern’s first publicized orbital flight was that he had survived it that and more human
Beings had watched him puke than anyone else in history you really just have to trust a pilot with these things you know Lee scowled from across the table a lot of us trusted you sir Alexander that’s not fair tears of Fowler broke in sir Alexander wasn’t even associated with orbital Ventures
When you signed up for this trip will all of you please just shut up Nicholas said with what seemed an infinite weariness if you haven’t paid your Ransom please just shut up and pay it when they come back this did in fact shut everybody up Viv concluded her
Conversation with sir Alexander with an eye roll worthy of a saucy teenager he winked back as though something momentous had been agreed to between them sir Alexander also found himself feeling an unanticipated access of tenderness for tears of fer talking back to one of the guests on his behalf he
Supposed that she was technically standing up for her boss or at least for the majority shareholder in her company which could of course have complicated her motives but her defense had been an unsought kindness the door slid open at that moment all the dolorous company of
Conference room SE looked up to see Dion come in I will not accept another delay he announced his voice both quiet and bristling with a frightening Subterranean energy it seemed to Sir Alexander that something had happened to the man or to his plans in those minutes
Out in the corridor he stood arms a Kimbo as the door slid shut behind him the strange apparatus that he had used to cause Roger Van Cleave such Agony was in his hand the great duffel was apparently elsewhere and with no further preface he pointed the Slender object at
Lee and pressed the switch Mr Lee you will come with me and you will hurry he said with a livid tension in his voice as Lee wried in his seat like a netted eel whatever Cur and see the strange device minted Dion paid it out for 3
Seconds 4 seconds more until Lee fell to the floor with the Yelp of an injured dog only then did Dion lower the odd wand and draw his pistol the others at the table had the good sense not even to gasp from his fetal position on the floor Lee kept his eyes averted though
He raised his hands in supplication as though his instincts had informed him that Dion had a pistol aimed at his head get up Dion said with a malignant to calm as Lee scrambled to his feet Dion took in the rest of the hostages at the table I will broke no more stalling he
Said our time is short and I will shoot any of you that tries to escape is that clear sir Alexander nodded vigorously before he realized that Dion’s question had been rhetorical he had shepherded Lee out of the room and locked the door behind them left to themselves once more
The hostages stared at one another in a silence that they all seemed frightened to break in the Stillness sir Alexander could hear the tiny ghostly tapping that propagated through the walls of the station from somewhere nearby the sound reminded him of the knocking of distant Plumbing the background noise of an old
Down at heill hotel rather than whatever orbital Ventures was pretending at with Imperium the Rhythm would persist for 30 seconds a minute enough to set his nerves on edge then the sound would stop for a few seconds a minute perhaps half an hour passed and that long silence sir Alexander returned
To contemplating his Alternatives his share of the ransom was the next largest after Lee since practically all of Viv vola’s Ransom had been financed by the van Cleaves sir Alexander expected then that if these brigands kept to their pattern they would lead him away next he wondered whether he had cut a favorable
Bargain with Roger Van Cleave agreeing to borrow so much of his share of the ransom to be repaid at 25% interest the wisdom or Folly of what sir Alexander had bargained depended more than anything on what was going to happen to the stock prices of orbital Ventures and
Hesperus and he could no more predict the future value of his companies than he could predict the weather a year hence whether the bargain had been shrewed or not sir Alexander found himself accepting the reality of payment both what he would pay to Dion and Company and what he would owe Roger Van
Cleave later without a moment’s grief the money was just so much paper less than paper nothing more than a promise of future value that he was pissing away to others in exchange for his life he regarded his own ability to make money even in the Autumn of his life as an
Essentially Limitless resource he was troubled more or far more immediately by the thought of physical torment coming out of the tip of whatever disruptor Dion was carrying and yet and yet was his fear of Dion and his weapons and his henchmen based on anything more real
Than the the money he had promised away Dion had killed people true but had he killed any of the people who had a ransom to pay perhaps Cassie ing but sir Alexander had no evidence that she was dead and even if Dion had killed her Cassie had committed only a million
Dollar would Dion actually kill him when he was committed to pay almost 250 times as much he could see plainly enough that Dion’s Enterprise was not going to plan during the first hours of the ordeal the hostages had huddled on the floor under the Gaze of three captors now Dion
Locked them in a windowless room without supervision for an hour at a time and something had obviously upset Dion’s apple cart he was a man in a hurry prone to making mistakes maybe during one of their unsupervised lock-ins Samir and Nicholas had whispered of the conversations they had had with their
Financial advisers orbital ventur had known of the hostage taking for hours now surely Some Kind of Rescue would come as soon as a launch window opened if the weather cooperated on Earth the launch window could open any time though he had been cooped up under guard locked
In one room or another for hours now sir Alexander felt a teasing aching awareness of possibility of opportunity rising up from the pit of his stomach he had felt much the same Ripple within himself when it had first occurred to him to make a tender offer for orbital
Ventures he asked himself silently the question that had been sneaking around behind the Aras in his mind will I try to escape but before he could answer himself or resolve any of the other mysteries about where he might hide and whether Cassi had been killed the door
Opened once again Lee stumbled in with his head down and dropped into a chair with a tired and graceless thump the evidence of his ordeal with Dion’s device appeared in garish Strokes across his face like invisible ink that had revealed itself Dion himself stood in the doorway Alexander done he said with
That familiar cool Tranquility yet given the device in Dion’s hand his voice frightened sir Alexander more than if his captor had been screaming at him sir Alexander sprang to his feet and scampered toward the door with his hands raised before his face he winced to imagine what was to come at any moment
From this man who seemed to have been made capricious by whatever had transpired over the last few hours but for now Dion did not Point The Peculiar miniature coffin at him to the library was all Dion said sir Alexander walked before him at a Brisk clip as though he were a child
Trying to walk ahead of a parent the fear of the man with the gun which he had regarded with a kind of academic distance when he was locked in the conference room now threatened to give him a panic attack he wondered whether there was enough oxygen left in this
Section of the station as he gulped at the air he imagined Dion’s pistol trained on him as they walked they entered the library Dion shut the hatch behind them and directed him to a chair in front of of one of the open laptops on the grand study
Table we’ll try this the easy way Dion said you will begin contacting your primary financial adviser she should be expecting your call you will begin liquidating assets as quickly as you can don’t worry about the price you are getting when you sell sell at whatever price will help you survive if your
Advisers are wise they’ve already begun making inquiries about buyers for Real Estate you own you should be able to move things along quickly Dion walked around the table so that he faced sir Alexander looming over him from behind the laptop if I begin to suspect that you were slowing down the process he
Said we’ll proceed the hard way if Dion pulled out one of his weapons for theatrical effect or made some threatening Grimace sir Alexander saw nothing but the Walnut of the tabletop where he fixed his gaze but sir Alexander did manage to exert enough self-control to nod he stared at the
Blank screen of the laptop in horror was he supposed to Skype Ursula his principal asset manager FaceTime with her set up a zoom meeting WhatsApp Google messages was he supposed to Google Ursula’s name and find her phone number which like every other phone number he’d called in the last 30 years
He had not memorized he was afraid to look up at Dion who was beginning to move around to stand behind him sir Alexander opened his mouth to ask what he was to do but only a squeak like a rusty hinge emerged from his constricted throat whoops Dion said affably I’ve left you
In the dark he Stood Beside sir Alexander and motioned with his disruptor at the bottom of the screen move the mouse down there and your menu should come up closer up the device seemed less to S Alexander like a little coffin and more like a brushed steel ray
Gun in an art deco Flash Gordon aesthetic with a narrow fluted trumpet Bell of a muzzle like a pen steon Blossom made of gunmetal sir Alexander looked over the TK bar that appeared among the icons was a folder with his name on it he opened the folder within
Was only a single document titled contacts and a Skype shortcut the document listed the Skype username phone number and email of Ursula Butler as well as usernames and numbers for three of Ursula Butler’s assistant and several names he did not immediately recognize but that he realized a minute later must
Belong to some of his property managers how the reckon ners had come by all this information was a mystery to him sir Alexander felt the return of a dread that had plagued him all day dread that people who wished him harm had been studying him for some time perhaps for
Weeks perhaps from the moment he’ applied to become one of the first guests of Imperium he clicked the Skype shortcut the somewhat frazzled looking matronly Visage of his financial advisor came up almost immediately on the screen hello sir Alexander she said in a tone that struck him as both sympathetic to
His plate and and in congruously casual I was told that you’d be calling I need to come up with $249 million as quickly as possible he blurted if Ursula was taken aback she didn’t let on as you know that’s a difficult figure to move quickly it will involve discounting a significant fraction of
Your assets however I have secured preliminary approval of a loan from Barclay’s I will inform them of the amount you will be borrowing to be paid pending your authorization by a transfer of stock in the following index funds as Ursula Butler recited the names of his money market accounts that would be
Sucked dry to pay the loan of his Ransom money sir Alexander considered how the great wheels of the transaction like massive interlocking gears seemed to have been in motion a long time without his approval or even knowledge it was a feeling he had encountered before in reverse the sense of his net worth
Multiplying well beyond the inputs of time and energy he had devoted to growing his fortune in a sense he had become a kind of approval machine whose only function in the ecosystem of his Empire was to authorize or declined to authorize activities that various underlings brought to him you have my authorization
He found himself croaking very well sir Ursula replied you may tell your captors that within the next hour they will see $249 Million worth of alal coin in the wallet I was provided sir Alexander wondered what had taken Roger Van Cleave and the Winter’s kesis and Lee so long when they had been
Brought into the library of course they had a great deal more money to move sir Alexander thanked his asset manager and managed to work up a w approximation of a smile he stared awkwardly at the woman on the screen in the 15 years they had worked together since she had taken over
His accounts after the retirement of his last asset manager he had never invited Ursula Butler to dinner in fact he had never bought her so much as a coffee that he could remember he had of course paid her very well for her Services better he was sure than the salaries of
99% of the asset managers in the world but after 15 years she meant no more to him than a familiar postal Clerk or a regular waiter at a favorite restaurant might yet he looked at her now thousands of miles away with all the tenderness he might have felt for a spouse or sister
Or daughter if he had ever had such a person in his life Ursula Butler seemed to him a solitary connection to the world of gravity and open air of Skies full of rain of an old assumption that he would not be shot at when he stepped
Out of his door he wished for the call never to end he wished to weep and blubber to Ursula Butler about how much he had always loved her and had only now realized it Buton was standing again before him at the other side of the table lifting up his Buck Rogers ray gun
As though he were pausing in the moment before pointing it at sir Alexander Dion drew a finger across his throat in silence sir Alexander ended the call without a profession of Love though Dion had not pointed the device at him sir Alexander brought his hands once more in
Front of his face grimacing already against whatever Agony was coming for him it was in that moment that an Insight rose up out of his predicament a sudden knowledge of his own bravery and cowardice he had been able to descend to the Abyssal zone of the Pacific in his own research submers
He had circumnavigated Great Britain alone in a sea kayak he had flown into orbit in an experimental space plane in all those moments of heroism or Folly he had forged ahead without a doubt because it had never occurred to him viscerally that he would be hurt far from being
Enemies the oceans and atmospheres he had traversed were to him no more than neutral media that held his Charmed Life as a bird’s nest shelters an egg now though facing the armed man before him he could barely maintain the presence of mind to keep from cowering under the
Table Dion was a creature with the grace and threat of God’s avenging Angel sir Alexander quailed in his presence but when sir Alexander stole a glance through the unruly mess of his hair he saw that Dion had turned away from him sir Alexander looked up then to see
Vitali in the doorway the big man had the look of an ancient butcher or field surgeon his pressure suit smeared and spatter pattered with blood his gloves soaked dark shek gone Vali said sir Alexander couldn’t see Dion’s face or indeed anything about his reaction he heard nothing except for a frightening
Silence that had settled about the man at length sir Alexander heard a slow deep exhalation like the breathing of a whale Vali stood at attention with the massive duffel bag in one hand and his pistol in the other a pry bar was stashed in his belt by his
Holster I’m calling an end to the operation Dion said at last sir Alexander heard in his voice the same Placid veneer the same undercurrent of deep malice speaking to Vitali as Dion used with the hostages I’m going to prepare the Starliner for launch you lock the hostages in retrieve the body and
Rendevu at lab module 2 at 1420 hours do you think you can do that without shooting anybody else yes sir Dion turned to look down at sir Alexander I think we’re done here comrade he offered an in congruous little nod as though in approval of Sir Alexander’s Behavior or by way of
Goodbye he stroe past Vitali without a word Vitali stepped aside for him to pass Vitali motioned for sir Alexander to rise he passed through the entryway into the main Corridor and walked a few steps ahead of the bloodstained gunmen toward their holding pen in the conference room Bali unlocked the door
For him sir Alexander noticed noticed as he passed through into the room a stale Funk of body odor that he had been only dimly aware of in the hours he had sat among the hostages someone gasped Vali addressed them from the open door we thank you for your cooperation
People a rescue mission is on its way from orbital Ventures the lunch Windows should arrive within the next hour or so they will take them a few hours to dock that’s normal if you need to visit the restroom in the next few hours now is the time
To Sir Alexander’s surprise no one spoke up perhaps there were some who would rather pee their pants than walk alone with someone who looked as Vitali did now then just as Vitali opened his mouth to speak Viv voltera spoke I suppose if we’re going to be waiting that long I
Should go I should as well Samir said me too said Nicholas Vitali pursed his lips as though he was contemplating a trial of great unpleasantness all right then he said you first voltera she went out before him and a moment later the door slid closed behind them chapter 12 48 minutes
Earlier the elevator car pulled Chloe along the cylinder of beta spoke as she listened to Dion’s pronouncement of her death sentence over Channel 8 neutralize Chloe he said deploying that odd bureaucrat itic euphemism for what was to be done to her as though Chloe were some acidic solution being titrated with
A buffer the image was apt in one way at least Khloe’s Talent more than any other was her knack for suspending briefly the stories that the mind will spin those Confections of anxiety and doubt and guilt and resentment that punctuate the actions of all human beings to one
Degree or another and that paralyzed many she was in that moment as thoughtless as an AIT solution stirred in an Erin Meer flask as automatic in her works as a hydrogen ion cleaving through its Universe of water she assumed that Vitali and Dion were standing in the rim Corridor just
Outside the entrance to the elevator they wouldn’t be able to open that door at least not without a great deal of force Imperium treated each of the exterior elevator doors as airlock hatches above her at the other end of the spoke another fortified hatch separated beta spoke from the axle that
Hatch being the destination of the elevator could be opened Khloe was suspicious of that hatch at the other end the Hub end Nina might have enough time to leave the bridge and make her way in near vacuum toward that hatch where she could use it as a murder hole
In much the same way that Khloe had killed Meredith Khloe assessed the second door of the elevator car the one above her head that would dock with the hatch at the Hub in that moment the elevator stopped the display screen read 51% of Earth’s gravity prepared to grasp
A handhold the car had gone only about a third of the way up the spoke nah was the only one in a position to have stopped the car assuming she had not yet left the bridge in a few moments though she would float off the bridge into the
Axle open the landing doors to the elevator and begin Perforating the car with gunfire like a stage magician piercing a box with a dozen swords alternatively Vitali and Dion could blast through the elevator doors below her assuming they had something in that bag of tricks to punch through the steel
Of the doors and they could do the same From Below she didn’t have time to deal with the elevator cars security camera she hoped only that nah had turned from the bridge and was not watching her as she moved she hooked a foot into one of the handholds of the elevator as though
She were stepping into a stirrup then she vaulted toward the ceiling grasped the manual access knob to the upper hatch she popped the hatch open like a trap door she pulled herself out of the elevator car into the pitch black of the shaft and the dim light that emerged
From the car through the hatch opening she took her bearings then she shut the hatch behind her and slid her way in darkness behind the cab between the rails of the emergency ladder and the guide rails of the car she waited in the thread be atmosphere of the spoke she
Could hear nothing when the firing started all Chloe felt was the rocking of the elevator car on its guide rails the plinking of bullets almost Beyond her hearing like the dropping of farway coins she didn’t know whether the gunfire was coming from Nina at the Hub
End of the shaft or Vitalia or Dion at The Rim end she didn’t know whether the walls of the car presented enough of a barrier to prevent overpenetration of the bullets she suspected that they didn’t and yet whoever was firing seemed to be peppering either the roof or the
Floor of the elevator from a perpendicular angle or nearly so rather than firing obliquely at the walls of the shaft Chloe realized when she opened her eyes that there was a dim gray oscillating glow above her as the car shook she had a fleeting sense of
Waiting for a train to pass over her the wall of the elevator car rocked in the near Darkness only a few centimeters in front of her face how many shots had there been a dozen 20 she could not hear them but Chloe was aware of a pause in
The shuttering of the elevator car she took her chance in the close space she Drew her weapon moved quickly up the three rungs of the ladder to climb past the elevator car The Landing door of the elevator was cracked open above her flooding the end of the shaft in dim
Light she saw no one in the opening she noticed too that no light came from the perforated ceiling of the elevator car it was too dark in fact to see the bullet holes themselves Nina must have shot out the lights in the car during the barrage there was no chatter over
Channel 8 Chloe leaned against the top of the car resting her elbows and taking aim there was a Stillness of a few seconds barely long enough for Khloe to wonder whether her hunch was correct then a shadow appeared again in the hand breaths opening of the hatch at the
Elevator landing and Khloe knew that she had guessed correctly nah had been reloading Khloe fired and as she saw the shadow jerk and reaction Chloe felt the fleeting satisfaction of being able to see someone who could not see her she watched Nina’s form back away from the opening Chloe hesitated only a moment
Back down behind the ruined elevator car like a hiding crab she heard Nina’s voice hyperventilating come over Channel 8 I’ve been hit trying to seal off my suit Chloe moved quickly she dashed up the ladder pumping herself up each rung with her legs as she guided her Ascent
With her left hand she had not climbed 30 rungs before the pull of the false gravity had diminished sufficiently for her to scramble over rungs skipping rungs nearly leaping upward until with a final push of her right leg and a heave of her left arm she was launched Rising
Like a shark out of the darkness vitali’s voice came more frantic than Khloe had ever heard it before over the communicators we’re in the axle baby I’m [ __ ] won’t stop Chloe slowed herself with the rungs of the ladder just below the open Landing of the elevator she hesitated and the aperture of the
Landing Khloe could see from her angle a sparkling cloud of nah spent cartridges floating like a tiny asteroid field she heard nothing more from Nina over the communicators sit tight Dion said Itali is on his way Chloe ran through her options she could try to descend the
Shaft again climb past the elevator car to the rim end hide out there or she could attempt to secure the axle maybe catch fali unawares neither option appealed to her if she climbed back down the shaft she had no idea who might be on the other
Side of the elevator doors at The Rim end for all she knew Dion had set himself up in the corridor ready to blow open the doors with explosives or a high-powered rifle and if he wasn’t there would she be able to get out that
Way if she had to if there was some way to cool the doors open from her and she didn’t know it but she disliked just as much the idea of escaping out the Hub end of the spoke into the axle Nina was still grunting up there lots of people
Get shot and still feel like fighting and even if nah had become incapacitated by now from Panic or blood loss or depressurization of her suit Vali would be arriving any minute she did not pause for long before she decided to push herself down the spoke the way she had
Come she grasped the rungs of the ladder again when she had floated halfway down the shaft then climbed gingerly back to her redout behind the elevator cab in the dim Twilight of the shaft bits of detritus shards of the punctured elevator patch scraps of upholstery from
The car floated about in the wispy air and low gravity like Marine snow below her on the other side of the hatch she knew parts of Imperium were still beautiful still unburned still a glowing Nimbus of felt curves and Arctic blue light here in the shaft though in this
Place that a guest would never have been invited to enter the spoke was aissy dark Chief this is Vitali she heard over Channel 8 Nina has a chest wound I want to get her down to infirmary could you meet us with the gurnie at the bottom of
Alas spoke copy that Vitali bringing the gurnie Chloe thought once more about whether to move or stay put if Dion was meeting Vitali and Nina at the alphas spoke elevator she would be free to return to the rim through the doors of the beta elevator if she could figure
Out a way to get them open from this side it was worth inspecting the doors at least was there some manual override that she hadn’t remembered she climbed a few more rungs down the ladder into the pitch black of the lower shaft she questioned whether she was safe to light
Her headlamp whether Vitalia and Nina had boarded the elevator yet her time was short Chloe stealed her nerves what is life but a series of calculated risks and reached up to light her lamp then she felt the Jagged Edge on the crest of her helmet remembered her Collision
Hours before with the wall up on the axle the crunching sound the spray of plastic shards the darkness around her wouldn’t be answered for all the human Ingenuity available to Chloe the darkness might have stretched out forever over the distance between the galaxies it didn’t take her long to
Realize that she shouldn’t stay where she was this Elevator Shaft was her last known location to them it would be a tough spot to escape if one reckoner was posted at each end of the spoke which might happen again soon enough once Vitali and Nina descended she would have
The Hub to herself she imagined how much time it would take Vitali to call the alphas spoke elevator guessing at how much time had passed since his last communication she took the risk again climbed again pulling herself until she floated to the top of the Elevator Shaft
She looked out with her gun drawn the axle was bright gleaming empty if she could get down the alphas spoke elevator while the reckoners were on their way to the infirmary she might slip out could find herself another place to hide the alpha spoke elevator was at The Rim she
Called it drawing her gun on the doors as they opened for her but the car was empty pristine except for a single smear of blood on one azur satin wall the elevator descended quickly the doors opened on the empty Corridor of the rim The Silence of Channel 8 gave her some
Satisfaction it meant she hoped that there was no one left on the bridge to communicate with she had little time to waste on hoping for things but she moved up the corridor beneath the security cameras in the hope that she was un observed she moved counterclockwise around the rim in the opposite direction
That Dion and Vitali would have taken to get nah to the infirmary Khloe passed toward the locker rooms the gym toward that spot where she had watched Cassie squirming in vitali’s headlock the corridor was empty now but then as she approached the broken open sliding door
Of the middle dressing room she saw a dark thread trailing along the carpet the trail drew a thin broken line toward the fitness center Chloe looked through the open entryway of the gym the place seemed empty she saw though the thread of blood leading deeper into the room
She opened the visor of her helmet scanned around when she stopped her own breath she could hear the small ragged breathing of another Chloe came around one of the treadmills and found Cassie there lying on her side with the fitness Center’s first aid kit pulled down from
The wall its contents strewn about her a great peony Blossom of blood had spread across the white outer thigh of her jumpsuit close close by her hip she did not look up when Chloe came into view but rather seemed to be trying to hold a gym towel over the wound Chloe knelt
Beside her it’s okay Cassie I’ve got you she said though she did not feel that either of those assertions was true she leaned over Cassie’s thigh using one hand to press the blood soaked towel against the wound at the back of her leg she saw immediately that there were two
Wounds the bullet had passed out of the front of her thigh about 15 CM away Cassie had been trying to cover both wounds with one towel Chloe grabbed another towel began pressing against the wound at the back of Cassie’s thigh with her knee while she mashed the other
Towel against the wound at the front with her hand with her foot Khloe dragged over the tumbled first aid kit she took the surgical dressing scissors still lying in the case and began cutting open the leg of Cassie’s jumpsuit the work felt awkward in the gloves of her pressure suit with only
One hand free and as though she were a little girl using scissors for the first time Cassie made a low Keening cry as if she was suddenly distraught over the loss of the jumpsuit or as though she was only now aware of Khloe’s presence sh I’ve got you Chloe said Cassie
Continued moaning Khloe peeled back the incised fabric of the jumpsuit and began to pack each wound with gauze Cassie screamed in agony or perhaps in horror as Chloe found herself thinking back in con ously to the silent cavers of the Santa Rosa Junior College anatomy and physiology lab gaunt cancer victims
Octogenarians failed by heart disease or stroke each body embalmed as meticulously as a Pharaoh’s whatever was different now the warmth the air about Cassie free of alahh and methanol the elasticity of her tissues added up to something Chloe knew she would not call it the soul which he didn’t believe in
Nor any other mysticism like the vital spark or animal magnetism but some mystery was there some emergent property that kept Cassie writhing even now and that kept Khloe probing her fingers into the mouth of each wound like some doubting Thomas as she worked she worried about
The noise Cassie was making if Dion or Vitali heard her would they be more likely to come help her or to come harm her I’m going to get you home Chloe said this assurance was not she thought strictly impossible if the bullet had hit her femoral artery
Cassie would have bled out already here on the outside of her thigh though the gauze Khloe was sliding into the wound with her finger was beginning to stanch the flow of blood to judge by the imagined line that connected the wounds through the leg Chloe supposed that the
Bullet might have shattered the femur or at least ricocheted off the bone I need you to stay quiet Chloe said Cassie nodded she had at least stopped screaming now that the wound was packed had dropped her breath to a whimper still too loud Chloe thought but at least she couldn’t be heard throughout
The whole rim of the station Khloe rolled a towel under Cassie’s head for a pillow and started rummaging around the Welter of spilled first aid supplies for some kind of painkiller it occurred to her as she hunted that comra long gone home from Lab module 3 was a medical
Doctor not a trauma surgeon perhaps but certainly better equipped to manage a gunshot wound than she was it seems strange to her that a company charging visitors $82 million ahead would have kept only two EMTs on staff it was then that she realized the two were Angel and
Nina Chloe tried to draw cass’s attention away for a moment why the hell didn’t you put your pressure suit on I was trying to contact you on Channel 5 I couldn’t get the suit on she panted those suits are hard to get on this was not Chloe’s experience with the fitted
Pressure suits it it wasn’t as though Cassie had tried to strap herself into a pmu then a pill bottle that had rolled under the treadmill captured Khloe’s attention acetam minin tablets 200 mg Khloe disliked the idea of giving Cassie Tylenol for a gunshot wound however she disliked even more the idea of sneaking
To the infirmary in search of morphine the rescue mission might take another hour to hit its launch window by her estimate perhaps 90 minutes who knew how long it would take a rescue detail to do to board to secure the station her intuition told her that Cassie would
Survive that long she had a decent chance Chloe thought of not bleeding out assuming of course that nobody found her and shot her again but if Khloe could get Cassie and the Medevac and herself for that matter they could be earthside in an hour a helicopter could have
Cassie at La General an hour after that maybe less the medac was docked close by the infirmary Chloe didn’t like its proximity to V H and Dion but could she sneak Cassie out behind their backs were the reckoners likely to use the medac for themselves I need you to hang tight she
Whispered to Cassie I’m going to see if we have a clear path to the medac Cassie shook her head with what seemed like Dread no she exhaled no that won’t work Chloe shushed her I’ll be right back stay as quiet as you can no Roger and
Jessica were on the medac I’m I’m sure they’ve launched it by now Cassie spoke with such conviction that it wasn’t clear whether she was speaking lucidly I will check on that Chloe said humoring her for now let me see if the medac is still there and if we have a
Clear path to it fine go ahead Cassie sighed in a tone that said she knew Chloe was wasting her time just hurry Chloe looked up and down the main Corridor of the rim her Communicator had been silent since she had last heard vali’s exchange with Dion did that mean
Vitali and Dion and Nina were in the same room together or had they finally changed the channel they were using she listened in for a few moments on each of the other channels hearing nothing maybe they were observing radio silent or maybe she just wasn’t lucky enough to catch them talking the medac
Arlock was at the antipode of the fitness center just down the corridor from the library recker’s territory she knew though that there was nowhere on a circular track that one could hide for very long from any of them Chloe found herself again disliking the choices that
Were before her she Drew her weapon and began to slink down the corridor eyeing each hatch and doorway as she approached then she saw something that chilled her as she passed the pillar of the beta spoke elevator she noticed that along the seam of the doors a white putty had
Been affixed like a crude spackling job Dion and Vali had been carrying around C4 in that duffel bag if she had remained in the Elevator Shaft if she hadn’t gotten a lucky shot at nah they would have blown open the elevator doors below her once more Chloe banished the sense of her looming
Mortality returned to the path before her she began to move quickly now there was no good reason for one of the reckoners to be hiding in the cafeteria a storage closet one of the Surplus conference rooms on the off chance that she would pass this way when she had
Gotten close enough to see the hatch of the medac airlock the bottoms of the entryways to the infirmary and the library were visible up the curve of the corridor she stopped crouched watched hearing nothing a minute she waited stealing her courage then as she was about to slip down the
Last meters toward the airlock she saw someone emerge from the infirmary from the looks of the feet and the legs the great duffel bag the only Parts she could see from her Vantage the man was Vitali his legs crossed the corridor to the light library and passed in Chloe
Decided in that moment that she would return to the fitness center she would give Cassie a large dose of aetam minin from the first aid kit and hope for the best they would wait for the reckoners to leave if they did leave they would wait for the rescue mission whenever
That was coming she and Cassie might yet survive perhaps the others would too those that had managed to live this long then just as she began to turn back the way she had come she saw a different pair of feet emerged from the library stepping crisply away from her down the
Corridor she watched them recede from view until they disappeared a few moments later she watched a third pair of feet sir Alexander’s she was sure nearly hidden behind the Hem of His Wizard’s robe walk out of the library and up the corridor followed by the legs of Vitali and his swinging
Duffel a brave impulse really nothing more than the perception of an opportunity worth grasping flashed for a moment in Khloe there were opiates in the infirmary a gurnie Nah if she still lived must have slowed down a good deal by now Chloe took one last look up and
Down the corridor and slipped into the infirmary she saw nah at once a bloody mess on the gurnie her pressure suit and jumpsuit had been cut open blood soaked Gau pad still rested on a spot above her right breast she would have bled very quickly in the near vacuum of the Hub
Chloe knew or perhaps she had died first from decompression ression the bullet having perforated the pressure suit before it entered her body her face that gate through which all Humanity had evolved to communicate its Joys and Sorrows its fears and serenities expressed nothing now the room was a confusion of opened wrappers and
Discarded implements the three cabinets against the wall all stood open their doors Pride open it looked like and had been rifled through Chloe scanned quickly over the medication packs disremembering which colored box corresponded to medications for which ailment it was in the red pack that she found the painkillers lidocaine benzocaine moram minin
Hydrocodone she dropped the bottle of hydrocodone into the makeshift pocket at her duct tape belt she was relieved to see that despite imperium’s Carnival of Bloodshed the infirmary’s second gurnie was empty she released the brakes and began Wheeling it out she spared one last look at the ruin of nah Nina’s key
Fob remained on the belt of her pressure suit and beneath the sliced open flaps of the suit and the breast pocket of the jumpsuit Chloe spied the beveled edge of a cell phone she had another intimation that she had found something that might come in handy even without the access
Code she would have been grateful for a cell phone flashlight when she was stuck in the elevator shaft Chloe slipped the phone into the pocket with the painkillers and Nina’s fob she wielded the gurnie to the doorway once more scanned the corridor then pushed the
Gurnie out into the hall and and ran it back toward the fitness center she found Cassie groaning where she had left her Cassie grimaced with what seemed like pitying disdain for Chloe on seeing the gurnie I told you the medac is gone Chloe realized only then that she had
Been so engrossed with the opportunity of finding the infirmary empty that she had not followed her own plan you told me Chloe repeated in the tone of a parent comforting a sick child Chloe looked around for something she could use as a cup for the water fountain the
Canister of methyl silicate spray among the first eight supplies had a plastic lid that might hold half an ounce of water she filled the cup and knelt over Cassie to give her two 10 MGR tablets I didn’t know you had a cell phone with you Cassie said Chloe’s pouch
Had dangled near Cassie’s head as she took the hydrocodone you should try to call helmond again see when the launch is happening it’s not my phone I found it on Nina’s body I took it in case we need a flashlight Cassie stared at the phone as though she were
Regarding an omen that had appeared to her I think that’s Eric’s phone she finally said the pin is 00707 Chloe concluded that Cassie was probably in shock I’ll try that okay but right now I want to get you onto this gurnie and into the medac capsule you’re not listening to me
Cassie groaned punctuating each word as though she were speaking to a drunk or a child the medac is gone everyone made a bid for it and the van Cleaves won I’m sure they launched it hours ago Chloe remembered the ghostly tapping she had heard in the corridor she began to
Wonder whether there was more to the medac than she knew really try 007 007 to unlock that phone I’m [ __ ] ser ious all right fine I’m trying it Chloe punched in the numbers and the phone opened up like a dream apparently Eric had chosen one of Humanity’s dumbest
Possible pins how did you know that she asked Cassie I saw nah using it after they killed Eric she took a deep breath and closed her eyes surfing some wave of pain that had passed over her can you Skype helmond with it Chloe gave it a try most likely Helman wasn’t expecting
A call from Eric’s phone then again he was probably glued to his Skype right now Helman picked right up he was scowling when he first appeared on the screen sitting in his study his disordered overpopulated bookshelves stretching off behind him as far as the hallway which was mounted with totems
And masks he had collected from throughout the Americas Helman had the frown of someone who had received a lot of bad news lately but his face softened to a bemused stricken look when he recognized Chloe Klo how did you get Eric rasm Mason’s phone it’s a long
Story Chloe said listen things are bad up here what’s the status on that rescue launch T minus 54 minutes can’t you just stay out of their way for that long I’m trying to do that Chloe answered offering a fleeting sorious glare at Cassie but we’ve got a situation here
Cassie’s been shot and we need to get her earth side I was hoping to get her aboard the medac but she tells me it’s been launched already I can check on that for you but I’m pretty sure the medac hasn’t launched he said Ground Control would have received an alert on that Chloe
Shot another glance down at Cassie who was shaking her head with a twisted expression that might convey disapproval or denial or misery I’ll look into the medac Chloe said you might let Ground Control know that we’ll be trying to launch as soon as we can what did you find out about zadok
Casey called out from the floor Helman seemed as surprised to hear Cassie’s question as Chloe was I really haven’t had much time to dig into that once everyone is safe at home we can get to the bottom of all those leads Ron I’m going to try to get us on
The medac I think we’re better off getting Cassie earthside as soon as we can Helman looked faded and defeated beneath his wall of books if you can do it without crossing the hostage takers go ahead but you’re better off hunkering down where you are then as if realizing only in that moment
That he could neither forbid nor permit anything Chloe might want to do he said please Klo just keep yourself safe I would never forgive myself if something happened to you for a moment after he signed off the grainy still image of helmond in his study the hallway in the background with
The masks and totem staring out at her remained on the screen of the Dead Man’s cell phone Chloe regarded it as she might a curious snapshot I swear to you Cassie said Dion auctioned off the seats on the Medevac Roger and Jessica won them I believe you
But Ron would have known by now if the medac had launched if Roger and Jessica are still aboard Imperium I want to get them off the medac and see if I can get you home on it Cassie looked past Chloe up at the ceiling with a miserable resignation for her part Chloe wasn’t
Sure that her plan was such a good one either they were like much safer where they were out of Dion’s way and hopefully if the bridge remained empty out of sight could they wait for rescue here then again Khloe had no idea how orbital Ventures rescue mission was
Going to work would Dion and Vitali have escaped the station by then would there be another shootout what was to keep Dion from killing everyone aboard if he wanted to what would keep him from blowing up Imperium meanwhile Cassie had bled a great deal it wasn’t clear to
Close that she would live another hour much less another 18 or however long it would take orbital Ventures to secure the station and Ferry them back to Earth Khloe passed sips of water to Cassie half ounce by half ounce in the cap of the analgesic spray can Cassie took each
Tiny gulp greedily Khloe wished that it had occurred to her to take a water bottle from the infirmary the latest incarnation of a regret that kept manifesting in one form or another today yet she knew that no one could anticipate all things she took consolation in the knowledge that there
Was much that Dion and his people had failed to anticipate too moving Cassie to the gurnie would have been a challenge for a pair of EMTs even in the opiate Haze that was descending on her she was in agony being moved by a single person one half of her
Body at a time at one point she cried out with such guttural force that Chloe wondered whether she had made a mistake to try and move her Cassie looked at her with an exhausted pleading s there please just let me rest a minute please please just see if the medac is there if
It’s there you can put me on it just give me a minute Chloe had assumed when she tempted fate the first time that she would make one trip to the infirmary for the gurnie another with Cassie on the gurnie to the medac not that she would be shuttling back and forth back and
Forth as Vali and Dion prowled about yet the mystery of the medac capsule whether it was there or not troubled her as well she weighed whether she wanted to wheel Cassie into recker’s territory on a hunch I’ll be back as soon as I can Chloe said she reached out to brush the
Hair from Cassie’s forehead with what she hoped or imagined conveyed affection to the girl Chloe felt in that moment like some fantastically complex machine that had been invented to imitate mamalian impulses and behaviors someday if she lived that long she would contend with her grief and would perhaps feel
Like a mammal for real as she Drew her pistol again and began the long walk along the wheel to the Medevac airlock Khloe had a sudden unexpected urge to reach out to Dion on Channel 8 as though she were some State Department official negotiating with the Hostile regime over
The fate of a prisoner perhaps they could talk like adults about the Medevac capsule come to some agreement about getting Cassie to a hospital how would that possibly interfere with Dion’s goals come in Dion she hailed him over the communicator she continued creeping up the corridor attending to the silence
Over Channel 8 Dion here she heard at last go ahead Chloe I don’t want trouble I just want to get Cassie ing onto the medac capsule can we negotiate safe passage for her there was another long pause that’s not going to work what the hell do you want Dion there’s nothing I
Want from you or Cassie he replied the medac is currently occupied come on man Cassie’s been shot that was a regrettable consequence of her attempt to escape screw you Dion just take your money or zadok’s money and leave us the hell alone we’re not trying to stand in the way of your [ __ ]
Revolution you don’t know me he said at length and you don’t know the revolution if you did you would let us go about our business we’re fighting for people like you you could fooled me I’m serious did your father deserve to die protecting a wealthy man’s property what was his
Reward for a career keeping the underclass out of the malls and gated subdivisions did any of that property he was protecting come to you you still owe $50,000 in student loans if I’m not mistaken in fact it had occurred to her more than once as she nursed a nameless
Sadness late at night or as she sat raw nved in freeway traffic that her father’s job had essentially been to protect the wealthy from the poor some in her position perhaps most hardened their commitment over time to those rules to that Law and Order how else would she make sense of her father’s
Life and death and yet some lonely Clarity in her character had always refused to make sense of something senseless the system that had killed her father was in fact broken but Chloe soon came back to herself look I didn’t call to discuss politics with you I just want
To put Cassie on the the medac Dion’s voice had a resignation that disarmed her take my advice if you want her to live don’t put Cassie on the medac somebody sabotaged the splash down presets Cassie will just end up in the middle of the Pacific somewhere if you send her down that
Way but I won’t stop you he added at last Dion out the Medevac airlock had two secure hatches one that opened onto the main Corridor and a bay door that docked with the medac capsule itself self attached to the rim of Imperium like a remora to a gigantic heedless
Shark Chloe made a quick inspection up and down the corridor checking again the doorways to the library and infirmary then turned her attention to the medac airlock hatch the reading on the hatch display reported that the airlock was pressurized through the port hole she could see that the bay door was also
Closed she waved Nina’s key fob over the latch and let herself in the tapping was louder within the the airlock was empty a utilitarian metal vestibule at odds with the design of much of the rim she walked across the chamber to the exterior hatch through its port hole she
Could see the hatch of the metac capsule still docked to Imperium the insistent tapping vibrated through her fingers when she touched the handle Chloe opened the hatch and wrapped on the closed hatch of the capsule the capsule opened within was a cramped low ceilinged space
Like the bed of a camper van Roger and Jessica Van Cleave looked out like two blur eyed owls where the [ __ ] is Dion Roger asked we’ve been crammed in here for then his voice trailed off Chloe appreciated suddenly the sight she presented with the gun in her hand the
Blood stains soaked into her suit the feeling was like the sight of a fun house Hall of Mirrors that in the midst of many distorted Reflections presents a single image of shocking accuracy it occurred to Chloe as Roger and Jessica began clamoring out of the capsule into the airlock that there was
No safe place on Imperium to put the two perhaps she could use Nina’s key fob to hide them in an out of the way space listen she said let’s get you locked up into one of no way Roger interrupted as he pulled Jessica from the capsule we want to talk to Dion
Please listen it’s not safe out here Chloe protested but the two had moved past her sliding the visors of their helmets open with an exasperated flourish you tell Dion that we want to talk to him Roger snapped as they stroe into the hallway Chloe realized only now
As she followed the two out that they believed her to be one of the reckoners when the interior hatch of the airlock snapped shut behind her and she stepped into the rim Corridor again she saw Vitali he was walking in her Direction lugging the old fateful duffel
He stood perhaps 10 m away just on the other side of the library and the infirmary from her it registered on her her quickly that Vitali seemed at least as surprised as she was as he raised his weapon Khloe fired at him and Dove for the only cover anywhere nearby toward
Him into the open doorway of the infirmary a couple of meters up the hallway Jessica Van Cleave let out a scream behind her the duffel hit the floor with a thud whether her bullet struck him or went wide Chloe didn’t stay to find out Chloe landed on the
Floor inside the infirmary the gurnie where Nina’s corpse lay in Repose loomed in front of her she scrambled to turn over and aim her weapon just as vitali’s form appeared in the doorway she had she thought hit him with her shot in the corridor his right hand hung empty at an
Odd angle yet he moved with a kind of painless predatory Grace in his left hand was the pry bar she had seen him and Dion use when she had watched them through the security monitors in those moments hours ago in which she’d felt herself to be in danger but which had
Been she knew now moments of relative safety she fired again as he pounced upon her she knew that this shot had hit him a gut shot she believed and yet before she could fire again she felt the nerves of her weapon hand explode in a
Flash of pain as the pry bar swung into it like a baseball bat she heard her pistol clatter against the far wall of the infirmary she regarded the sound with a kind of resigned Melancholy as though she were listening to a solitary Rock bouncing down a tailess cliff of a
Distant Lonely Mountain she attempted to squirm out from under Vitali who had dropped to a knee on top of her he knelt on her thigh and swung the pry bar again she lifted her left arm to Perry the blow glanced off her arm with another jolt of fantastic pain then bounced into
The side of her helmet even under her helmet the glancing blow sent a flurry of Sparks across her vision she flipped herself over as he leaned back to swing at her once more she scrambled out from under him before he could bring the pry bar down upon her again she pushed
Herself to her feet with her aching forearms she noticed with a kind of clinical Detachment that she could not bear weight with her right hand and dashed out into the corridor even dazed as she was she could tell that Vitali had been slowed down and yet she could
Hear him grunting like an enraged boar somewhere behind the labored breathing she heard in her own helmet she ran as quickly as she was able her head pounding her right hand numb ahead she saw Jessica and Roger running away from the gunfire moving moving beyond her
Field of vision in the corridor she shot a glance back toward the infirmary she could see Vitali blood soaking the front of his pressure suit staggering into the corridor toward the duffel he had dropped she heard the pry bar clatter to the floor Chloe too staggered she felt
Blinded by the pain above her ear she knew or some observing part of her mind knew that she must attend to the present moment had to think that her life and the lives of others depended on it where was she going she couldn’t lead Vitali back to the fitness center why then was
She running that way and there were so few decent hiding places between here and there as though in a dream she knew that she had had this realization more than once already he was behind her she doubted that he could run very fast given his blood loss but there were at
Least two pistols he could have picked up he could almost certainly live long enough to shoot her she looked to the staff cabins as she passed by them the hatches to Dions and T’s cabins had been torn away could she hide in one of those whether by dull instinct or the evil
Associations her buffeted brain Drew with the names on the broken doors Chloe passed those by kept staggering up the hallway 30 m farther on she saw the scorched noisome cafeteria where she had hidden from Nina a few hours before or had she hidden there days before up
Through the fog of her confusion she remembered the cafeteria as a horrible place to hide yet that was the dark quiet space she made for hopefully she had outrun Vitali enough that he wouldn’t see her duck in yet when she hazarded one more glance up the corridor
She saw him he was not 30 m behind her he had lowered the visor of the helmet on his pressure suit a pistol was holstered at his hip in his good hand was a small squarish device a walkie-talkie an old handheld radio Chloe felt as though the object’s
Function was nearly accessible to her mind another dream memory that she had begun to forget upon waking she ran as best she could some deep Insight perhaps no more conscious than the firing of motor neurons led her to lower the visor on her banged up helmet in that moment a great shudder
Rolled beneath her feet a flash of light glared like the sun far ahead along the corridor followed a moment later by a concussive Roll of Thunder that drowned out everything she found herself thrown to the floor that was it she told herself as though she were only now
Beginning to understand a joke that had been told at her expense the object in vitali’s hand was a wireless Detonator in a Visionary encirclement tactic or perhaps in some AIS of suicidal spite he had detonated the C4 around the elevator doors at the beta spoke pillar Chloe
Felt the urgent need to turn herself over to get to her feet to move the lights had failed in the section of corridor where she lay even in her suit she could feel a breeze passing over her as though Imperium itself had suffered a sucking chest wound the claxons began to
Wail again distantly the closest loudspeaker must have shorted out and she was hearing the alarm from farther up or down the corridor decompression event beta spoke the computer voice was saying amonia leak detected in ring Corridor she pushed herself to her side she saw that in the direction she had
Come from one of the corridor’s emergency hatches was closing like a massive garage door the station was trying to to seal off the whole breach that the explosion had caused on the same side of the corridor soon to be locked in with her was Vitali he was
Attempting to roll to his knees by pushing with one elbow against the floor one of his hands dangling like a ragd doll the other clasped over his abdomen she saw both of his gloves steeped in blood she rolled to her arms and knees scrambled crawling toward the cafeteria
She heard a shot but nothing hit her as she dashed behind the wall of the entryway the cafeteria was deep in darkness now that so many of the nearby lights in the corridor had gone out she pulled herself to standing with the help of a chair then wobbled and felt her way
Toward the swinging door to the kitchen which puffed open as the air within the room was slowly sucked toward the station’s newest hole breach she passed through into the pitch black of the kitchen she hoped that the lights were shorted out here too she felt along as
She groped toward a hiding place with her good hand she reached gingerly to the magnetized rack that her senseman memory of the kitchen had placed above her head her glove passed over the slim blade of a boning knife she took it up and lurched the last few steps to the
Edge of the stove she crouched in the space between the stove and the Butcher Block the knife out before her in the Blackness the noise of the far off claxons had diminished almost to nothing a sign that much of the atmosphere in this section of the rim had already bled
Out into space she did not hear the swinging door of the kitchen as it opened again rather she registered vali’s entry only as a faint infiltration of a distant gray glow from outside the kitchen then the darkness prevailed again if Vali had tried the switch the lights must have shorted out
In here as well she wished that she had taken a position from which she could fight crouched on the floor where she was the best she could do would be to punch out with a knife while Vitali stood above her putting a bullet in her head through the haze of concussion
Through the shadows of blood and violence that clouded her memory she accepted the likelihood of her death with a sleepy indifference with no more terror or sadness than if she had woken in the middle of the night to find that one of her experimental be had failed to
Germinate she heard or more accurately felt through the floor vali’s slow stumbling steps into the kitchen like the Staggering of a drunkard she prepared herself for One Last Moment In Her Imagination he stood perhaps 2 m away she did not hear him take another step with a kind of mindless desperation
Chloe punched out in front of her with a knife but there was nothing to strike nothing to sense no sounds No vibrations she stabbed again thrusting the knife upward in front of her she felt nothing not even a whisper of air a minute passed then 5 minutes in the silence and
Waiting Khloe became aware of the numbness in her right hand giving way to an increasingly insistent pain she worried for a moment about the ring of her father’s lapel badge cutting off the circulation in her swelling finger then she remembered that she had moved that ring to her left hand she
Pressed her thumb against her ring finger felt the band pressing back against her under the thick skin of the glove she didn’t know how long she waited before she felt curious enough to set the knife down next to her and fish Eric rasmason cell phone from her pouch
She L up the flashlight and leaned forward to shine it around Vali was sitting next to her no more than a meter away in much the same position that she had been crouching his back propped against the door of the stove his head tilted back as though in exhaustion
Vali’s arms were crossed over his belly as though he were nursing a stomach ache in profile she could see his still face looking out into the darkness as though regarding a far off Mountain his pistol lay next to him it was another 18 she noted or perhaps it was the same gun she
Had been using before Vitali had broken her hand she could have reached out and picked up the weapon from where she sat the claxons had gone silent now Chloe was in a vacuum or near vacuum she couldn’t remember where the rim corridor’s emergency hatch was positioned on the other side of beta
Spoke if the fitness center was on the other side of that emergency hatch she told herself Cassie might live if the gym was on this side of that hat hatch she would certainly be dead by now that coolant leak was new too there was no telling how dangerous that was if the
Leak had sprung where the hole breach had occurred the ammonia might simply bleed off into space without the heat exchanging function of the ammonia the station would get very hot or very cold or both hot and cold in sequence as Imperium rotated but everyone aboard might be able to live through the temperature
Extremes for a couple of hours until rescuer arrived but if the leak had cropped up elsewhere as a result of the shaking of the station the gas leak could kill anyone who couldn’t get into a pressure suit if again they weren’t dead already Khloe’s hand was throbbing
Now immovable in its glove she wished she had a couple more of the hydrocodone tablets she had given to Cassie a few minutes ago the side of her head too gave off a distant otherworldly throbbing she felt an unexpected yearning to lie down to rest as though a
Broken hand and a knock on the head with a crowbar were nothing more than fleeting setbacks that would resolve themselves with a good night’s sleep but several aspects of her reality refused to let her sleep in peace Cassie for example was one of those who couldn’t
Get into a pressure suit nobody none of the hostages none of the putative Rescuers not helmund maybe not even Dion knew where Chloe was right now and she had no more than 20 minutes worth of oxygen in in this suit without her having to plug into an umbilical she reached across her body
With her good hand took the pistol that lay between her and Vitali holstered it at her thigh she picked up her phone flashlight again and with a sickening pain she lifted herself to her feet with her quadriceps by sliding her back up the wall behind her as she picked her
Steps over vitali’s corpse she noted that her movements were no Sher than his had been in his final moments she tottered her way toward the door holding her broken hand against her sternum as if in an imaginary sling she emerged into the new darkness and vacuum of the
Corridor she had once run she made her way toward betas spoke when she saw it she knew that she would not have survived if Vali had timed his blast better the hatch to Beta spoke was blown into a pandemonium of shards that had gouged out great rents of scorched
Upholstery exposed dangling wires torn light fixtures from their sockets there were two odd debris piles that she registered after a moment as bodies she realized as she approached that she would not need to check for a pulse on either of them Jessica’s corpse lay Spade in an unnatural blood soaked
Backbend Roger lay a few meters Beyond nearly sheared and two at the waist his face profoundly ugly grimaced at the dark ceiling Chloe peered with a light of Eric’s cell phone up into the Beta spoke Elevator Shaft through the ruined doors she could see that the spoke itself had been subjected to intense
Spalation the lowest three rungs of the emergency access ladder were bent out of shape and she could see in the wall of the spoke a hole the size of a human heart gaping out into space chlo passed on up the corridor beyond the second Rim airlock where Eric had been cast out
Toward the fitness center that was when she saw a stroke of good luck the emergency hatch had closed off the corridor just beyond the conservatory separating the Blasted section she was in from the rest of the rim the fitness center lay on the other side of that
Hatch Cassie might still be alive at least she reminded herself Cassie might still be alive if there was no ammonia leak on that side of the rim Chloe did her best to remember the layout of Radiators and ammonia lines around Imperium she knew the main pump for the
Rim was mounted on the exterior of the station just between the two Rim airlocks wherever the leak was she could stop it by venting the ammonia from that pump if she could get herself plugged into an umbilical in the second Rim airlock from there she could space walk
To the pump she wondered whether she understood all the ramifications of what she was doing she accepted that she might have been DED by her injuries but do or not the engine of reason was the only engine she had she knew she had no other options than to Space Walk toward the ammonia
Pump chapter 13 11 minutes earlier Dion sat in the captain’s chair of the Starliner patching the capsule’s computer system into imperium’s command and data handling once he finally accessed the bridge computer system again he would be able to redirect the hub’s overworked oxygen generators to pressurize the
Capsule while he assessed the status of the station systems Dion reached out over the communicators Vali what’s the status on the the hostages do you have an ETA no answer he disliked having called the operation before its completion not that the remaining Ransom was worth worrying over how much additional risk
Did they want to subject themselves to for Viv vola’s 120 million much less Cassie if she was even still alive and her single million what bothered him rather was the collapse of the agreement as much as he despised Roger Dion had had every intention of honoring ing their bargain and sending the van
Cleaves home first instead Roger had paid the Lion Share for an empty promise Dion had signed nothing of course but how would the reckoners be regarded in the future once Roger started spouting off about how he had been cheated Dion resolved again to devote less attention to what a reprehensible
Young billionaire might say about him to the news media come in Vitali he repeated the voice that responded was Vitali IES but Husky and distant in a way that made him sound like a different person Chloe wounded Pursuit toward beta come again Vitali Dion began keying in the override commands for using
Imperium’s oxygen generators to pressurize the Starliner in that moment the Starliner shuddered a sickening Tremor shook Dion in the restraints of his safety harness a shock wave had mushroomed through the hole of Imperium and across the C Dion knew immediately what had happened it troubled him that someone had seen
Fit to detonate those charges and if it was Vitali all the irritation Dion had felt with Vitali for having shot Cassie ing flooded through him again an emotional shock wave that mirrored the physical one the status display of the station began to proclaim the existence
Of a new hole breach on the rim as imperium’s computer began closing the emergency hatches in the main room Corridor to seal off the section of the ring near beta spoke Vali report Vali made no response Buton was confronted by a squad of other warnings broadcast by imperium’s computer rapid decompression ammonia
Leak orbital perturbation Dion took a long hesitant moment to assess how dire Imperium Circumstances had become he called out to beali once more Dion wished that he could get at the station surveillance camera feeds from this terminal and see for himself what was happening down on the rim if Vitali had
Gotten himself blown up by his own over enthusiastic demolition work there was a kind of dant and Poetic Justice in the man’s fate live by the C4 die by the C4 but Dion knew that he had gotten ahead of himself there were any number of reasons that Vitali might not be
Responding and he couldn’t very well leave The Man Behind if he was alive he checked the key access program through imperium’s computer we Al’s fob and Nina’s came up in the staff kitchen of all places at least Vitali had recovered Nina’s body he moved quickly there was
So little atmosphere in the hub that he was able to get past the elevator door hatch at the head of betas spoke without even a puff of air he lit up his headlamp and surveyed The Long Dark shaft he moved down the beta spoke emergency ladder toward the rim in the
Dim light flooding down from the Hub he could see the shot up elevator car that he needed to move past squeezing past the car on the ladder was a tight fit for him the bottom of the spoke was badly damaged a mess of Twisted Metal and Scorch marks the whole
Breach was close by where he climbed a jagged rent in the steel of the spoke he had suspected when he first saw the charges set that Vitali was being over enthusiastic with the C4 if he hadn’t cared about causing a decompression event Dion could simply have broken open
The elevator doors with the 50 caliber rifle it would would have made less of a mess than he was seeing right now cautiously he picked his way down to the Warped end of the ladder dropped himself past the last few damaged rungs to the blackened deck of the rim the station
Looked abandoned here a ruined derelict craft from another world that he had boarded in the charred chaos of the hallway lay one human lump then another he recognized the raw meat coloration of the CIS lunar pressure suits the corpses of the van Cleaves seemed no more than
An oddity now a curious feature of this unfolding disaster long past any power now to stir up feelings of Honor or shame in him he drew his weapon in the lonely hallway and made his way toward the kitchen Dion’s headlamp picked up a smear of Blood on the swinging door to
The kitchen he pushed open the door and scanned the room let his eyes pass over vitali’s bloody form suppressing an immediate emotional reaction clearing each spot in the darken space where a bad guy where Chloe might have hidden herself the kitchen was clear he knelt over a
Vitali took in the profusion of blood that soaked his pressure suit looked into his visor his once handsome chiseled face had taken on a doughy bruised cast as though he had just emerged from a boxing match with an invincible opponent a track of blood snaked from his nose another trailed
From the corner of each eye like two dark tears Dion allowed himself a single moment of contemplation he was now what he had always known himself to be fundamentally unalterably alone Vitali nah where was nahk body he checked vitali’s body for Nina’s fob for a few moments before an
Alternative explanation for the fb’s whereabouts occurred to him he went back the way he had come climbing out of the blast zone of beta spoke by the shaky ladder he returned to the Starliner as he strapped himself in he felt neither the grief of his loss nor the Triumph of
Having secured The Ransom there would be a day to feel all things now like a well programmed machine he began the launch routine again he looked once more at Imperium status readouts the computer had detected the ammonia leak not at the site of the explosion itself where Dion
Had originally expected it would be but farther out on the rim the ammonia lines apparently did not pass that closely to the juncture of betas spoke and the rim from the computer schematic it looked like the feeds passed exclusively around the Rim’s outside Edge but the shock wave of the explosion
Had apparently knocked something loose in the system there was a small leak on the ring nearly midway between Alpha and beta spokes a small leak but sooner or later all ammonia leaks are deadly the launch window for the rescue mission was still 45 minutes away perhaps 3 hours
Would pass perhaps far more than three before the rescue mission would be able to dock with Imperium that was more than enough time for an ammonia to poison everyone aboard the station’s cooling system like its oxygen generators could not simply be shut down in Toto from the computer some engineering team at orbital
Ventures had had the Insight that there were almost no benign reasons but a great many malign ones for a user to order such a shutdown Dion attempted to shut down only the ammonia pump serving the rim he found the malfunctioning ammonia circuit on the schematic and began tentatively clicking commands from
The drop- down menus yet a few moments of Investigation failed to turn up any simple command named shutdown he felt a wistfulness come upon him not regret precisely but something like an awareness of irony that Conrad Whitaker was dead Conrad had known far better than he how the control application for
The cooling system worked Dion considered the possibility of leaving the hostages to their own devices the hostages might be able to get suited up before they were overtaken by ammonia fumes or maybe the hostages would die their deaths did not have necessity implied that he had not kept
Up his half of the bargain after all it was Vitali who had caused the explosion not him and anyway he had already broken his word to the van Cleaves what did it matter if he failed to keep this other Assurance Dion knew that these were rationalizations he stared at the
Display for a long minute resisting the con clusion that he already knew he would have to arrive at he needed to deal with the leak before he left if he couldn’t figure out how to shut it down from the computer he would have to manually disconnect the ammonia pump
That fed the leaking circuit from there he would be able to vent the entire reservoir of that circuit into space he didn’t relish the thought of another space walk but he didn’t dread the prospect either he felt a Stillness that he had not anticipated as though all the
Violence and Folly of the last hours for good or for evil had balanced to a perfect composure in his heart whatever he had done he had done in service of some larger more Cosmic Justice the Reckoning had been made it fell to him now not to let the hostages die Dion
Took up the capsule’s emergency toolkit from its Locker he disembarked the Starliner capsule once more moved to the airlock off lab module 2 next door the same pmu he had used the day before hung in its webbing he strapped himself in Connected the pmu oxygen pack to the
Intake in his pressure suit and opened the bay door of the airlock as he maneuvered his way clear of the Hub Dion was struck by the gleaming beauty of Imperium viewed from outside the station was orbiting the day side of Earth the Sun glinted on the white sheath of the
Hole as though over a sheet of pure ice no visitor looking on the station from this Vantage would guess how much destruction and Chaos had fermented Within Dion sailed his pmu out from the slow rotation of the Hub toward the more quickly Spinning Wheel of the rim he had
Dropped about 10 m beneath the station or above it depending on one’s point of view and he took a moment to ascertain which of the ammonia pumps was the main he manipulated the pmu thrusters and retro thrusters to watch the edge of the rim rolling above him he saw the long
Brightly lit Windows of the fitness center and the darkened shimmering Windows of the observatory approaching his position then a little farther on the second Rim airlock passed by and 30 m or so beyond that the squarish locker of the ammonia pump moved along its Arc of rotation
Toward him just as he began to fire his thrusters to turn to intercept the movement of the pump the same way a train jumper runs alongside the tracks as the cars pass Dion saw something he did not expect a figure was already there without a personal maneuvering
Unit awkwardly poised at the Ona pump the figure looked as though they were blay to some protrusion or Spar on the hole of the station they appeared already to be working on the pump’s access panel with what looked for a moment like a pistol but Dion realized must be an automatic socket
Wrench whether because of unfamiliarity with the tool or because of the difficulty of their position attached to the Wheeling rim of the station by both a bay and a pressure suit umbilical or for some other reason the figure had clumsy misbegotten movements the awkwardness of a strange child Dion
Hesitated there was only one person alive on Imperium that could have taken it upon themselves to space walk without guidance or supervision as the figure passed beneath him he drew his weapon unsure of his next step in a way he had not yet experienced during his mission on
Imperium the figure Dr Khloe Bonia passed by rotating with a stricken station clutching her right arm to her chest like a withered limb a Brazen visceral malice Rose in him for this frail looking figure who he might have considered a friend in a different world to the extent that Dion had friends at
All this woman who had killed Angel Meredith nah even that F Vali had not shot himself in the stomach the reckoner victory had cost them a great deal thanks to her how many cells of reckoners were out there in the network with as much talent and training
As the team that Khloe had broken up and yet yet what would he accomplish by shooting at her the reckoners had come to start a revolution their task had been to strike a blow against an inequality of wealth that shocked the conscience they had come to make an end
Run through an active public theater around that connivance of banking finance and speculative interests that had erected around itself a legal system whose sole purpose was the preservation of those unconscionable inequities Dion and his reckoners had redressed that sucker game of a system at least as regarded a handful of billionaires
Foolish enough to spend $82 million to float around orbiting the Earth for 2 weeks no one would be spending a dime on something so idiotic as an orbital vacation for a long time to come and the money they had siphoned off these leeches would recruit and equip a 100,000 more
Reckoners how these new recruits would appear where they would train and imp Place themselves Dion was curious about those questions but they were hardly his concern zadok was the most senior reckoner he had spoken with and even zadok was someone about whom he didn’t know that much the man was no more than
A shadowy figure in a parking garage that he had spoken with a few times a disembodied voice on a cryus call the reckoner leadership structure was of necessity distributed how else could any change be accomplished in the regime of surveillance capitalism that bore down on most of humanity the reckoners had
Set themselves up in such a way that if any one of them had been captured or if any of them had defected nobody would have anything of real value to divulge to the principalities and Powers arrayed against them Dion had no need to preoccupy himself right now with that
Larger struggle the faints and counterpunches in motion around the planet as the reckoners battled the forces of exploitation that most of humanity simply called the world as we know it Dion had done what he’d come to do that was enough he hadn’t come to Imperial to kill without reason as
Though she had been listening in on his line of thinking Chloe suddenly swung around on her Bay to position the box of the ammonia pump between herself and Dion’s pmu Dion knew that she had seen him she had let go of the wrench which floated free now on its tether while she
Reached across her body with a graceless jerk toward her weapon he hid his thrusters to position himself on the other side of the rim from her as she passed out of his sight he understood the ungainliness he had no noticed in her actions she couldn’t use her right
Hand why else would her holster sit on the hip opposite from the hand that Drew the weapon he should have shot at her he realized in the Silence of a vacuum and a battle space as broad as the orbit of the earth she would never have known
That anyone was firing on her but he was not like Vitali one who could kill without reflection perhaps Dion thought he would have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had been such a person Dion maneuvered to the inner side of the rim just below the path of the revolving
Spokes of the station beyond the field of view of Khloe’s position he wished he could simply fly the pmu back to the hub and board the Starliner Chloe had been handling the leak however inexpertly whatever crisis vitali’s demolitions had brought on Dion didn’t have to answer
For it or make it right the ammonia pump had passed Beyond him now maybe a 100 meters away on its rotation like a model train on a track he could no longer see Chloe either whatever she was doing there or whether she was moving elsewhere along the rim he concluded
With a deepening dismay that she would have a clean shot at him if he took the pmu from the rim to the hub the same way he had come out it would be safer for him to travel with one of the spokes between his route and Khloe’s position
Orbital Ventures had spent a lot of time training the crew not to move pmus between the rim and the Hub in the same plane as the spokes collisions were far too easy in that plane as each spoke swung around like the boom of a sailboat but with a bit of careful maneuvering to
Stay on one side of the spoke as it rotated he could keep himself out of sight Alpha spoke which would pass his way again soon enough could give him cover as he moved but no matter how he returned to the hub Chloe could still
Get a good shot at him when he got to the hub and had to reenter the lab module 2 airlock he also knew that he couldn’t stay where he was right now Chloe could look over either edge of the rim and get a shot at him where he was he placed
Himself in the same plane as her just to the outside of the rim watching the blank dark Windows of the state rooms reflect him as they passed as Khloe’s revolution around the Hub took her past the antipode of his position the thought occurred to him though he had no time to
Entertain it that he was engaged in a pathetic dance with her a Padu that would end in the absurdity of him killing her or her killing him and it was an absurd he had no reason to kill her Beyond his own anger anger being the worst reason
To kill anyone for her part she would waste Precious Moments trying to kill a man who would be happy to leave her alone all while the people aboard Imperium asphyxiated in a cloud of ammonia gas that she could have diverted there was nothing to be gained by
Silence now Dion realized he reached out to her on Channel 8 Chloe stand down I only came out to bleed off the leaking ammonia if you’re doing that already I won’t trouble you there was a long pause Dion prepared himself to face the spot where he had last seen her then her
Voice came back over Channel 8 [ __ ] you Dion profanity had always irritated him ever since he was a boy waiting through a sea of it among classmates neighborhood thugs adults flapping their jaws carelessly cursing was a symptom of a breakdown in communication a cloaking of one’s rational position or the lack
Of a rational position which silly verbal posturing or juvenile theatrics he was in no position of course to lecture Chloe on the subject the way he had Roger Van Cleave then again he had had a point to make to Roger as well as to the other hostages that had nothing
To do with cursing he knew she was no Thug Chloe please be reasonable he called outou only endangering the others by wasting time shooting at me who am I endangering she retorted the van Cleaves Eric ason why don’t you let me worry about the people you haven’t killed Dion
Regarded her Words which would have called up such shame or anger in him an hour ago with a Detachment he had not expected you’re making a mistake was all he answered no matter he had to prepare for the ammonia pump to appear in his line of sight again and roll beneath him
On its Ark he held his weapon in front of his sternum as near to his Center of mass as he could his arms held closer in than the he would assume if he were shooting in gravity when he fired he would be propelled backward but hopefully not into a spin the great
Danger in zero gravity shooting the ammonia pump rolled into view again Chloe was nowhere to be seen Dion scanned the rim as it rotated a few meters beneath him as it passed he saw Khloe’s umbilical stretched over the edge of the rim like him she was trying
To put the structure of the station between them he had to use one hand to turn the pmu to to face her position as the rim rotated by in the final moment just before that section of the rim rotated out of his view he saw Chloe’s
Helmet and arm pop up behind the box of the ammonia pump he heard no sound but his own breathing in his helmet he felt no shot but he knew that she had shot at him there was no other reason to expose herself like that he returned fire his
Pistol off center now in relation to his Mass he listed from The Recoil of the shot as he worked to compensate with the pmu thrusters he glimpsed the ammonia pump rotating out of sight with the geyser of white flakes erupting from its side his shot must have punched through
One of the ammonia lines in the pump as he stabilized himself again out of sight of Khloe’s position Dion wondered whether his shot would bleed off the ammonia from the leaking coolant Loop in an appreciable way the quiet of the predicament they were in was Eerie to
Him the two of them could fire on one another until doomsday without either of them ever hearing a sound beyond their own breathing the knowledge of that silence saddened him he called out again Chloe I repeat Stand Down stand down and I will do the same I don’t want to fight
You the reckoners are leaving Imperium immediately do you have any idea what a Psy you are reckoner Chloe responded Dion had spent many hours stealing himself against the ridicule of the reckoners that he knew he would face against the ignorant mischaracterization of his mission against the derision that was at its
Root a terror of the Revolution to come yet despite his hours of meditation the tone of Khloe’s question stung him he would be lying to himself if he denied ever having had the anxiety that he was still somehow a sucker for him the reckoners were both an all-consuming
Philosophy and an obscure secret society the organization’s physical manifestations however were little more than a fevered Manifesto that had been compiled by fellow Travelers coded late night conversations and fringed discussion forums of the web a couple of shadowy dead drops with zadok leaving Dion satchels of cash for suppliers that
Would not take crypto and his companions of this Mission now lying in their own blood within the corridors of Imperium who were the reckoners really had he at any point allowed his imagination to run away with him was he in fact a py I never took you for a propertarian
He countered but the enemies of the Revolution are not always the obvious ones I could say the same about the reckoners she said breathing hard Chloe will you please stand down let’s just back away from each other and we can both get home alive yet as soon as he
Said it Dion knew that she was going to keep shooting at him there was no sense in begging and whatever she had meant just now Dion wasn’t such a sucker that he was going to wait around getting shot at he would get himself back to the
Starliner if he could keeping one of the spokes between himself and her as he maneuvered back to the hub then keeping the shaft of the Hub between him and her as best he could that meant turning and moving himself as the station rotated matching his rotation exactly to that of
The station the lab module airlocks though were on the same side of the station as Khloe’s position in the last moments she would get another shot if she saw him he couldn’t see the ammonia pump now it was at the other side of the rim from his position but he could see
The plume of Frozen ammonia bellying out from the pump’s location like the exhaust of an old steam train however he wasn’t about to wait until Chloe came into view and passed out of sight again he would take his chances now he dropped below the plane of the revolving Spokes and fired the thrusters
Toward the long pillar of the Hub as he moved he kept his eye on the plume of ammonia scanning for any sign of chloee and emerging to fire on him he kept his pistol trained on the plume as it traveled before him if he had to fire on
Her he would have to compensate quickly with the thrusters to put himself back on course he saw or thought he saw a dark shape moving behind the plume of ammonia Dion fired at the shadow he saw as he felt himself turning in response to the gun’s Kickback he knew quickly
And wordlessly that if he had seen her she had seen him that if she had made herself visible it was fire on him that if he had not hit her and perhaps even if he had she had the same chance that he had just taken Dion was ready to compensate with
The pmu thrusters for the kickback of his shot but he never got the chance he felt a shocking conclusive thud slam into the side of the pmu then a great hot Force pushed him from behind and he felt a searing pain he spiraled away from his destination free and clear of Imperium
Like a bottle rocket cork scre screwing into the night Dion did not lose Consciousness immediately he had enough presence of mind to know that his pmu had been hit that Khloe’s bullet had likely punctured one of the tanks or valves or feed lines propellant maybe or
Maybe oxygen he tried to reach up to disconnect himself from the backpack now blowing its contents into space yet his arm wouldn’t obey his command then Dion felt an equinity settling upon Him greater than any he had ever felt in all the hours of his stri and meditation he
Wondered at the last whether he would be captured by Earth’s gravity well and end his existence as a shooting star over someone’s night sky or whether he would spin off into the depths of space an eternal remnant of ice chapter 14 the ammonia pump was easy to shut
Down at least the shutdown was easy Once Khloe was alone and could focus her attention on something other than being shot at she unscrewed the box that served as the cowl of the pump letting the bolts float away into space then turned the pump off and disconnected the
Primary ammonia line once free of the pump a lazy snowdrift of ammonia gushed out of the line for a minute Chloe wondered whether she had even needed to shut down the pump in the end Dion’s shot had gone clean through the hose and the holes the bullet had created were
Bleeding off the ammonia admirably all her Wellsprings of pain in her head her hand her arm gushed up in her almost as soon as the ammonia line fell away from the pump Chloe felt drowned by her pain scarcely able to reel herself in on the suit’s umbilical and return to the rim
Airlock she let the umbilical pull her in slid down to a sitting position against the bulkhead of the airlock as the bay doors closed behind her dying there would be a blessed release she felt death didn’t come for her however the umbilical kept pumping pressurized air into her suit powered by the same
Independent generator that moved the bay doors they had been designed to work even in the event of a general loss of electricity she wondered then why the umbilicals and bay doors had failed in the second lab module airlock during The guest’s Space Walk when a year ago had
That space walk occurred just yesterday perhaps the crowd of them all plugged in had simply overloaded the circuit she closed her eyes and gave her self over to the synchronized pulsing in her hand and the side of her head she heard a voice she didn’t know Dr Chloe Bia come
In it was a young man’s voice with the tone of a Bor telemarketer calling her on a Sunday afternoon a few minutes had passed or a few hours or several days since she’d closed her eyes and let her suffering wash over her it took her several moments to understand that she
Was being hailed over Channel 8 this is Khloe Bonia PR she said her voice was Husky and clouded as though she had not spoken for a very long time I’m in Rim airlock number two and a depressurized section of the station copy that Dr Bia said the voice
This is security officer Kenneth Grady of the orbital Venture ship Sphinx I can see you through the airlock hatch port hole only then did Chloe open her eyes to see a blue orbital Ventures helmet in the little glass window of the hatch Chloe had only hazy memories of the next
Few hours her extraction on a gurnie rolling through the main Corridor to the alphas spoke elevator and what seemed like a totally decompressed station one of the rescue team explaining to her that the explosion on Imperium had critically destabilized the station’s orbit that there had been no
One on the bridge to fire thrusters to compensate for the orbital perturbation that Imperium would need to be imploded in order to break it into pieces small enough to burn up in the atmosphere when it felt to Earth her weeping inexplicably for the first time since
She was a child when she realized that she would lose the seedlings she had been researching she remembered that she was strapped into the gurnie on the Sphinx she was the last person to be pulled from the station a man had been asking her questions stupid questions
What are your dreams for the coming year are your parents alive what were their names much later she understood that he had been assessing her for a concussion at the time though she found the questions both annoying and impossible to bat away someone medicated her she remembered seeing Cassie in somehow and
Possibly suited up strapped into a gurnie next to her she remembered hearing the voice of a man somewhere behind her head muttering something about how they had been cheated she realized the voice was Nicholas Winter’s kashes she didn’t remember much after that the destruction of Imperium registered in her memory as nothing more
Than a bright light witnessed from a port hole of the Sphinx from kilometers away the re-entry to Earth’s atmosphere which he had sometimes dreaded during moments of exhaustion or boredom over the last months barely registered on her Consciousness she remembered it later like a turbulent airplane landing she
Remembered a many voiced crowd at the flight center remembered the flashing lights of tarmac vehicles and ambulances got one glimpse of what seemed like hundreds of cameras she looked for helmet in the crowd but she was Spirited Away in an ambulance almost before she could say his name to the woman pushing
Her gurnie she bobbed up into a dull achy Consciousness some time later her blood soaked pressure suit had been taken off her she felt the hospital gowns binding at her collar bone her right hand sheathed in a cast swam in a low insistent Rumble of pain helmond was
Sitting in a low chair at the foot of the bed his elbows rested on his knees his should shoulders were hunched and rounded as though they had been chastened by circumstances Chloe thought it wise merely to observe him eventually he looked over at her inhaling a long slow
Breath hey beautiful Chloe Drew up a smile I’ve been worried about you is Cassie ing alive Cassie yes she’s going to be okay under the covers Chloe felt for the ring she had moved to her left hand she and her thumb over the shield of her father’s tiny lapel badge
Are you doing okay babe Chloe gave a slow nod I think I just need a little more rest she said do you need me to come back a little later that sounded about right Khloe nodded and let herself drift back when she awoke later sir Alexander Dunn was sitting in the same
Low chair something was strange about him Chloe felt it took her a moment to put her finger on it his hair was finally combed it was still wiry and Sun damaged all the wealth in the world would not give sir Alexander an attractive head of hair but he no longer
Had the unruly Freight wig that he had sported every time she had seen him on Imperium and that it seemed a natural part of his mad wizard outfit the wizard robes were long gone he seemed an ordinary old man now in khakis and a golf shirt good morning sunshine he said
How is Cassie Cassie’s got going to be all right she lost a lot of blood but she’s stable and the others some of us are a good deal poorer he said she noticed the breast of his golf shirt sported a tiny tasteful orbital Ventures teardrop however all but four of us
Survived thanks to you I think four Eric rasmason was flushed out of the airlock Roger and Jessica Van Cleave died in the explosion vival Tera presumed drowned in the South Pacific Khloe’s expression must have seemed non-plus to him because he continued a few seconds later when
The hostages were being taken up to the Sphinx Viv slipped away from the group and launched herself in the medac capsule the splash down coordinates would have put her somewhere near villing one of the Ellis Islands but the capsule was never found she almost certainly sank to the bottom in it she
Stared back at him a long moment as though he were unable to Bear her silence he added at last the rest of us though oh you our lives Chloe had enough gentility not to say that except for Cassie she had given the hostages barely any thought during the entire ordeal
Certainly not Viv voltera not the van Cleaves and not even Eric rasmason except in that moment when she saw him expelled from the airlock and she wondered who he was she had lived through those hours with no more rationale than what a prey animal would need that survival is an absolute
Good the rescue team managed to recover your laptop sir Alexander said with a tenderness that brought her back to herself and they pulled out your planting units before Imperium was destroyed that part of her research was ruined she knew even if the seedlings had been able to survive inside the
Brick X units during decompression and even if someone had thought to reconnect their lighting the seedlings would not emulate a gravitropic response now that they had been brought back to Earth’s gravity now they would simply Express the gravitropism that came naturally to them still she thought it wasn’t impossible
To imagine that the brickx units had been well sealed enough that they remained pressurized after the whole breach perhaps if the little plants survived or even if they died there was something more she could learn from them later after sir Alexander left and she was alone again in the hospital room a
Disorienting bottomless moment opened up before her her memory colored the events in a stranger ster light she saw her last day on Imperium as she might see an optical illusion with A New Perspective snapping into Clarity for her it was a vision that she could not readily unsee
Where words like prey and Predator grew slippery uprooted from any meaningful biological reality who had been Predator who had been prey Khloe was released from the hospital a couple of days later found herself in a boutique hotel room in Palmdale 30 m or so from orbital Ventures headquarters sir Alexander had
Put her up there while she arranged to have her belongings shipped back to Oregon are you okay Helman texted her I wanted to bring you home from the hospital I’m okay she texted back I just need another day to rest first from her window she watched the family splashing
In the pool and wondered what kind of person would visit Palmdale in July it was still 102° at 7:00 in the evening perhaps she thought these were all families passing through on their way to some other place her belongings what was left of them anyway formed a
Tidy pile at the foot of the hotel bed three brickx units bulky as dorm fridges her laptop both her own cell phone and Eric rasmason inexplicably the pistol and the duct tape holster she had fashioned and she realized whoever had pulled her brickx units from the lab
Must have known her or perhaps had simply had an uncanny intuition her weathered Oregon State Beavers C sat a top the middle brick X she was surprised that the gun had not been confiscated by law enforcement she supposed that it wasn’t clear what Police Department would have jurisdiction over
Imperium at any rate for all she knew the company had handled the ordeal in-house handled it up to this point anyway she knew that someone would be knocking on her door sooner or later with a bunch of questions there were two rounds left in the magazine all her personal effects her clothes her
Toiletries her journal the photos and magnets and knicknacks from her cabin had been destroyed with Imperium there was a new pair of shorts a peasant blouse a pair of sandals all very Southern California all in her size that sir Alexander had given her to leave La General with someone at orbital Ventures
Had bought her another change of clothes which hung by the door the company knew all her measurements she took a little walk nothing strenuous once outside she could feel her wrist under her cast growing swampy with sweat she stopped in at a drugstore bought a phone charger
Toiletries a spray bottle to M her seedlings she received a text that evening hey it’s Cassie I hope it’s okay that sir Alexander gave me your number where are you Chloe texted back they just let me out I’m staying with the friend and Whittier for a few days until
I can fly home the two texted then spoke late into the night talking about what they had seen it was a couple more days before Chloe felt up to taking an Uber out to helman’s place he lived way out into Hatchi nearer to the orbital Ventures launch Center the ride had cost nearly
$100 one way an expense she would have blanched at in another life but she had had no rent to pay no groceries to buy during her months on Imperium all while her checks from the University had been stacking up in her bank account earthside $100 Uber ride felt like
Nothing Helman wrapped her up in a long hug as soon as she stepped up his front walk her head swam a little either from the Heat or from the Vigor of the Embrace or perhaps just from seeing him again I’m worried about you K he said they walked together into his house a
Sprawling Spanish colonial revival surrounded by an expanse of California Juniper and creosote that threatened to stretch to The Horizon the crushing heat of the day was drifting toward a stifling blue even evening can you stay he asked not long she said but I definitely wanted to see you he was
Leading her through the house toward the back talking now chattering about what had gone through his mind during the crisis as he led her through the tiled living room she followed him down the hallway that gave on to his study the hallway she had seen in the background
Of the Skype call she and Cassie had made from imperium’s fitness center the clay masks were arrayed there on hooks like a wall of portraits each face Frozen in Grim ferocity as she followed behind she plucked one of the masks from its hook on the wall helmond still talking took
No notice they came out on the patio where they had once watched the stars at a party out by the pool just before her launch now the place was quiet there were two pool chairs his cell phone lying on the seat of one an ice bucket
Of beers like a mirage in the heat on second thought I’m not so sure about the patio Helman said absently looking out at the pool we may need to wait inside until it cools off a little more the last time she had stood in this spot the night
Before the launch she had wondered whether she would ever look at the sky the same way when she came back she had been wise to be skeptical she saw helman’s phone light up on the pool chair as someone texted him whatever you say zadok she said Helman snapped around
To look at her then his expression startled at first migrated slowly into something wearier perhaps skepticism perhaps sarcasm he seemed aware for the first time of the Mask she had taken down and cradled in the croak of her cast it was the pale narrow-eyed face that had been zadok’s avatar on the
Crypsis app that’s my property he said quietly his voice riding over a dark undertoe of emotion I think there are some investigators who will want to have a look at it helmet remained Frozen staring at the mask Khloe felt as though she could see a current of his thoughts making a bleak
Circuit behind his eyes his hand shot out for his waistband but Chloe had her pistol out and pointed at him before he could finish reaching for his own gun careful Ron I’m pretty jittery lately Helman seemed to regard his situation with disbelief his mouth was a rigid
Line unreadable in a way totally at odds with what she remembered of him as alien to her prior vision of him as his hologram had been during the opening Gap ala in the Fortuna Ballroom now he seemed a brittle prematurely old man rootless and drifting the ice and the
Beer bucket collapsed into a new meta stable configuration with a liquid rattling sound you wouldn’t shoot me cl he whispered no I wouldn she said but I wouldn’t do a lot of things that I did he sat down on his pool chair his shoulders rounded like a Sandstone
Column subjected to an age of erosion he sted stared at the muzzle of her gun or perhaps beyond that at the mask in the crook of her arm things got out of hand I’m sorry Ron what happened up there Chloe knew as soon as she asked the question that she
Was hoping for an answer that he wouldn’t be able to give after all he had not been there you were never meant to be harmed those idiots had strict instructions instructions for what to steal 8 billion for you it wasn’t like that the wasn’t for me for the reckoners
Then what they do with the money is their business now I was just a backer who gave them a tip about the operation a backer awesome the reckoners are just another startup for you believe it or not I agree with their aims Chloe what they are doing is just wealth redistribution by other
Means Khloe took in helman’s explanation delivered in that lecturing tone of his that made any pronouncement no matter how ridiculous sound like a self-evident truth she felt the 10,000 square ft of helman’s house stretching off in every direction behind her and so you destroyed your own station to squeeze a
Few billionaires out of a tiny fraction of their money Imperium was never supposed to be destroyed his voice took on a pained whine that she had never heard from him in all the time they had dated he looked down from the gun at the Stillness of the swimming pool and it
Wasn’t my station anymore Chloe regarded this last statement as some melodramatic [ __ ] about how he had lost creative control of the project only slowly did it begin to Dawn on her that he was speaking literally Alexander Dunn was going to have me forced out of the company he
Said lots of people get forced out of their own companies Ron you take the payout and move on start another company you don’t shoot a bunch of people and blow up your life’s work it was supposed to be a simple hostage taking Chloe nobody was to be hurt
If it had gone the way it was supposed to the stock value of dun’s new company would have cratered and a handful of choice [ __ ] would be somewhat less Rich that’s all she noticed that he had said nothing about the deaths of Conrad and Pasqual and Noel had their killing also been
Some deviation from the plan the sense grew in her that she had never really known Ronald Helmand but looking down at him now as he sat with his head in his hands Khloe knew that she wasn’t going to shoot him I’m going Ron she backed away toward the patio door to the house
Her weapon still trained on him Helman watched her leave Chloe backed through the house went out the front door walked up the road a long way before she holstered her pistol again she walked one more block to where the Uber waited for her running its engine wastefully
Into the night she climbed into the front passenger seat let’s go she said to the driver she looked over her shoulder into the back seats as the car began its winding descent to the highway Cassie ining reclined there her leg stretched across the seat in a full cast
Did you get it she asked Chloe pulled off her old OSU cap the tiny camera they had to fixed to one of the eyelets was still running sending its feed to a phone in her pocket Cassie ing’s phone she switched off the camera pulled out Cassie’s phone handed both over the back
Seat to Cassie Cassie replayed a few seconds of the video Chloe listened to helman’s plaintive explanation again from where she sat he sounded both like and totally unlike himself the sound quality isn’t great Cassie said but we can definitely post this you know I never took you for a mck
Rer all your new fans must be going to your head you have to capitalize on your exposure Cassie answered tapping out something on the phone 30 million followers aren’t going to want to see another Hedgehog video Cassie help held the screen of her phone up for Chloe do
You want to do the honors kloe tapped the blue share link Chloe wondered as she looked back at Cassie what had been accomplished beyond their survival Beyond sending Helman to jail already the likes shares and saves began tallying at the bottom of the video before anyone could possibly have even
Finished watching it Cassie looked back at her with the vague amoral smile of a supremely self-possessed business person Ronald Helman sat where Chloe had left him contemplating the patio and the silent pool he had enjoyed living here he would miss it only much later did he remember his phone lying behind him on
The pool chair he picked it up read the text he had just received it was from his inside person the one who like him was due a share of the money better Lilo for a while he texted he knew that investigators sooner or later would get
Their Ms on his phone records but she was also a long long way away by now epilog Viv voltera reached over to the other pool chair where her phone had chirped in the Blazing Azure morning better lie low for a while the text read her mind drifted in a lazy swirl of
Feelings as she stared off beyond the pool beyond the chapel sweeping her eyes up the hill to the silent Museum like Hotel above part of what she felt if if she were the type to analyze her emotions with any delicacy was a wistfulness for Ron not a lot of people
Had been giving her the time of day when he’d shown up her company had imploded the banks were treating her like some kind of homeless person who had come in to beg for change the late night talk show circuit those people who had been fawning and creaming their pants over
Her a year before decided all at once that she was nothing more than a punchline for the opening monologue Ron didn’t have to be nice to her then but he was had he wanted something from her sure but he was a good Lei and he had needed someone someone like her that
Didn’t mind suiting up for some dirty work she knew how to use her powers of persuasion keep the hostages the rich ones anyway from doing anything stupid keep them interested in paying up and for playing her part $50 million worth of crypto and a one-way trip beyond the
Reach of the SEC and the doj she was sorry not to be seeing him again yet wistfulness was only part of what she felt even she was not so cool as to be unmoved by her change of Fortune no matter how lonely this was better by far
Than her raft of indictments most places without an extradition treaty to the United States were [ __ ] hole countries here though here wasn’t so bad $50 million would buy a lot of margaritas in vills this concludes the reading of exit Black by Joe Pitkin copyright 2024 by
Tower way based on a concept by Scott vry and Brendan Denine this book was read by Carolina Hoyos this unabridged recording was produced in 2024 by Blackstone publishing which holds the copyright neither this recording nor any portion of it may be reproduced or used for any purpose without prior written authorization from Blackstone
Publishing exit black is also available in print and ebook from Blackstone publishing for a complete listing of our titles visit our website at www.d downpour.com thank you audible hopes you have enjoyed this program